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RETURN  TO 

C.  F.  WELLER. 

2102  WIRT  ST. 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


^V.   ;', 


':■'■».%<'. 


GIFT  OF 


"Ma"  Crandell 


\t 


HERE  IS  AN  OLD  FELLED  TRUNK  THEY  HAVE  NOT  THOUGHT 
WORTH  CARRYLNQ  AWAY.  SHALL.  WE  SIT  DOWN  A  LITTLE 
WHILE  ?  " 


Felix  Holt 


JiTBAL,  AND  OTHER  POEAIS 


AND 


The  Spanish  Gypsy 


BY        '  V^ 

GEORGE  .ELIOT. 


NEW  EDITION.     COMFLETE  TN  ONE  VOLUME 


CHICAGO,  NEW  YORK,  SAN  FKANCISOO : 

BELFORD.  CLARKE  &  CO 
1889. 


1 


FELIX  HOLT,  THE  RADICAL.^ 


INTRODUCTION. 


H(oSO 

Five -AND -THIRTY  years  ago  the  glory  had  not  yet 
departed  from  the  old  coach  roads:  the  great  roadside  inns 
were  still  brilliant  with  well-polished  tankards,  the  smiling 
glances  of  pretty  barmaids,  and  the  repartees  of  jocose 
ostlers;  the  mail  still  announced  itself  by  the  merry  notes 
of  the  horn;  the  hedge-cutter  or  the  rick-thatcher  mi^ht 
still  know  the  exact  hour  by  the  unfailing  yet  otherwise 
meteoric  apparition  of  the  pea-green  Tally-ho  or  the  yellow 
Independent;  and  elderly  gentlemen  in  pony-cliaises,  quar- 
tering nervously  to  make  way  for  the  rolling,  swinging 
swiftness,  had  not  ceased  to  remark  that  times  were  finely 
changed  since  they  used  to  see  the  pack-horses  and  hear 
the  tinkling  of  their  bells  on  this  very  highway. 

In  those  days  there  were  pocket  laoroughs,  a  Birming- 
ham unrepresented  in  Parliament  and  com2)elled  to  make 
strong  representations  out  of  it,  unrepealed  corn- laws, 
thi'ce-and-sixpenny  letters,  a  brawny  and  many-breeding 
pauperism,  and  other  departed  evils;  but  there  were  some 
pleasant  things,  too,  Avhich  have  also  departed.  Kon 
omnia  grandior  cetas  qucB  fugiamus  habet,  says  the  wise 
goddess:  you  have  not  the  best  of  it  in  all  things,  0  young- 
sters! the  elderly  man  has  his  enviable  memories,  and  not 
tiie  least  of  them  is  the  memory  of  a  long  Journey  in  mid- 
spring  or  autumn  on  the  outside  of  a  stage  coach.  Pos- 
terity may  be  shot,  like  a  bullet  through  a  tube,  by  atmos- 
])heric  pressure,  from  Winchester  to  Newcastle:  that  is  a 
fine  result  to  liave  among  our  hopes;  but  the  slow,  old- 
fashioned  way  of  getting  from  one  end  of  our  country  to 
tlie  other  is  the  better  thin«:  to  have  iu  the  memorv.  The 
tul)e- journey  can  never  lend  much  to  picture  and  narrative; 
it  is  as  barren  as  an  exclamatory  0!  Whereas,  the  happy 
outside  passenger,  seated  on  the  box  from  the  dawn  to  the 
gloaming,  gathered  enough  stories  of  English  life,  enough 

3 

1180756    ,! 


4  FELIX   HOLT, 

of  English  labors  in  town  and  country,  enough  aspects  of 
earth  and  sky,  to  make  episodes  for  a  modern  Odyssey. 
Suppose  only  that  his  journey  took  him  througlf  that 
central  plain,  watered  at  one  extremity  by  the  Avon,  at  the 
ether  by  the  Trent.  As  the  morning  silvered  the  meadows 
with  their  long  lines  of  bushy  willows  marking  the  water- 
courses, or  burnished  the  golden  corn-ricks  clustered  near 
the  long  roofs  of  some  midland  homestead,  he  saw  the  full- 
uddered  cows  driven  from  their  pasture  to  the  early  milk- 
ing. Perhaps  it  was  the  shepherd,  head-servant  of  the 
farm,  who  drove  them,  his  sheep-dog  following  with  a 
heedless,  unofficial  air,  as  of  a  beadle  in  undress.  The 
shepherd,  with  a  slow  and  slouching  walk,  timed  by  the 
walk  of  grazing  beasts,  moved  aside,  as  if  unwillingly, 
throwing  out  a  monosyllabic  hint  to  his  cattle;  his  glance, 
accustomed  to  rest  on  things  very  near  the  earth,  seemed 
to  lift  itself  with  difficulty  to  the  coachman.  Mail  or 
stage  coach  for  him  belonged  to  the  mysterious  distant 
system  of  things  called  "  Gover'ment,"  which,  whatever  it 
might  be,  was  no  business  of  his,  any  more  than  the  most 
outlying  nebula  or  the  coal-sacks  of  the  southern  hemis- 
phere: his  solar  system  was  the  parish;  the  master's  temper 
and  the  casualties  of  lambing-time  were  his  region  of 
storms.  He  cut  his  bread  and  bacon  with  his  pocket- 
knife,  and  felt  no  bittea'uess  except  in  the  matter  of  pauper 
laborers  and  the  bad-luck  that  sent  contrarious  seasons  and 
the  sheep-rot.  He  and  his  cows  were  soon  left  behind, 
and  the  homestead,  too,  with  its  pond  overhung  by  elder- 
trees,  its  untidy  kitchen-garden  and  cone-shaped  yew-tree 
arbor.  But  everywhere  the  bushy  hedgerows' wasted  the 
land  with  their  straggling  beauty,  shrouded  the  grassy 
borders  of  the  pastures  with  catkined  hazels,  and  tossed 
their  long  blackberry  branches  on  the  corn-fields.  Perhaps 
they  were  white  with  May,  or  starred  with  pale  pink  dog- 
roses;  perhaps  the  urchins  were  already  nutting  amongst 
them,  or  gatheri)ig  the  plenteous  crabs.  It  was  worth  the 
journey  only  to  see  those  hedgerows,  the  liberal  homes  of 
unmarketable  beauty — of  the  purple  blossomed,  ruby- 
berried  nightshade,  of  the  wild  convulvus  climbing  and 
spreading  in  tendriled  strength  till  it  made  a  great  curtain 
of  pale-green  hearts  and  white  trumpets,  of  the  many- 
tubed  honeysuckle  which,  in  its  most  delicate  fragrance, 
hid  a  charm  more  subtle  and  penetrating  than  oeauty. 
Even  if  it  were  winter,  the  hedgerows  shoAved  their  coral> 
the  scarlet  haws,   the  deep-crimson  hips,  with  lingering 


THE    RADICAL.  5 

5rown  leaves  to  make  a  resting-place  for  the  jewels  of  the 
hoar-frost.  Such  hedgerows  were  often  as  tall  as  the 
laborers'  cottages  dotted  along  the  lanes,  or  clustered  into 
a  small  hamlet,  their  little  dingy  windows  telling,  like 
thick-filmed  eyes,  of  nothing  but  the  darkness  within. 
The  passenger  on  the  coach-box,  bowled  along  above  such 
a  hamlet,  saw  chiefly  the  roofs  of  it:  probably  turned  its 
back  on  the  road,  and  seemed  to  lie  away  from  everything 
but  its  own  patch  of  earth  and  sky,  away  from  the  parish 
church  by  long  fields  and  green  lanes,  away  from  all  inter- 
course except  that  of  tram])S.  If  its  face  could  be  seen,  it 
was  most  likely  dirty;  but  the  dirt  was  Protestant  dirt,  and 
the  big,  bold,  gin-breathing  tramps  were  Protestant  tramps. 
There  was  no  sign  of  superstition  near,  no  crucifix  or 
image  to  indicate  a  misguided  reverence:  the  inhabitants 
Avere  probably  so  free  from  superstition  that  they  were  in 
much  less  awe  of  the  pai-son  than  of  the  overseer.  Yet 
they  were  saved  from  the  excesses  of  Protestantism  by  not 
knowing  how  to  read,  and  by  the  absence  of  handlooms 
and  mines  to  be  the  pioneers  of  Dissent:  they  were  kept 
safely  in  the  via  media  of  indifference,  and  could  have 
registered  themselves  in  the  census  by  a  big  black  mark  as 
members  of  the  Church  of  England. 

Efut  there  were  trim  cheerful  villages  too,  with  a  neat 
or  handsome  parsonage  and  gray  church  set  in  the  midst; 
there  was  the  pleasant  tinkle  of  the  blacksmith's  anvil,  the 
patient  cart  horses  waiting  at  his  door;  the  basket-maker 
peeling  his  willow  wands  in  the  sunshine;  the  wheelwright 
putting  tlie  last  touch  to  a  blue  cart  with  red  wheels;  here 
and  there  a  cottage  with  bright  transparent  windows  show- 
ing pots  full  of  blooming  balsams  or  geraniums,  and  little 
gardens  in  front  all  double  daisies  or  dark  wallflowers;  at 
the  well,  clean  and  comely  women  carrying  yoked  buckets, 
and  toward  the  free  school  small  Britons  dawdling  on,  and 
handling  their  marbles  in  the  pockets  of  unpatched  cor- 
duroys adorned  witli  brass  buttons.  The  land  around  was 
rich  and  marly,  great  corn- stacks  stood  in  the  rick-yards — 
for  the  rick-burners  had  not  found  their  way  hither;  the 
homesteads  were  those  of  rich  farmers  who  paid  no  rent, 
or  had  the  rare  advantage  of  a  lease,  and  could  afford  to 
keep  their  corn  till  prices  had  risen.  The  coach  would  be 
sure  to  overtake  some  of  them  on  their  way  to  their  outly- 
ing fields  or  to  the  market-town,  sitting  heavily  on  tiieii 
well-groomed  horses,  or  weighing  down  one  side  of  ai; 
olive-green  gig.     They  probably  thought  of  the  coach  with 


6  FELIX   HOLT, 

some  contempt,  as  an  accommodation  1.  r  people  who  had 
not  their  own  gigs,  or  who,  wanting  to  Lravel  to  London 
and  such  distant  places,  belonged  to  tht  trading  and  less 
solid  part  of  the  nation.  The  pa&sengei  )n  the  box  could 
see  tliat  this  was  the  district  of  pro'  iberaiit  optimists,  sure 
that  old  England  was  the  best  of  all  possible  countries,  and 
that  if  there  were  any  facts  which  had  not  fallen  under 
their  own  observation,  they  were  facts  not  worth  observing: 
the  district  of  clean  little  market-towns  without  manufact- 
ures, of  fat  livings,  an  aristocratic  clergy,  and  low  poor- 
rates.  But  as  the  day  wore  on  the  scene  would  change: 
the  land  would  begin  to  be  blackened  with  coal-pits,  the 
rattle  of  handlooms  to  be  heard  in  hamlets  and  villages. 
Here  were  powerful  men  walking  queerly  with  knees  bent 
outward  from  squatting  in  the  mine,  going  home  to  throw 
themselves  down  in  their  blackened  flannel  and  sleep 
through  the  daylight,  then  rise  and  spend  much  of  their 
high  wages  at  the  ale-house  with  their  fellows  of  the  I  ene- 
fit  Club;  here  the  pale  eager  faces  of  handloom-we^  i-rs, 
nen  and  women,  haggard  from  sitting  up  late  at  night  to 
inish  the  week's  work,  hardly  begun  till  the  Wednesday. 
Everywhere  the  cottages  and  the  small  children  were  dirty, 
for  the  languid  mothers  gave  their  strength  to  the  loom; 
pious  Dissenting  women,  perhaps,  who  took  life  patiently, 
and  thought  that  salvation  depended  chiefly  on  predestina- 
tion, and  not  at  all  on  cleanliness.  The  gables  of  Dissent- 
ing chapels  now  made  a  visible  sign  of  religion,  and  of  a 
meeting-place  to  counterbalance  the  ale-house,  even  in  the 
hamlets;  but  if  a  couple  of  old  termagants  were  seen  tear- 
ing each  other's  caps,  it  was  a  safe  conclusion  that,  if  they 
had  not  received  the  sacraments  of  the  Church,  they  had 
not  at  least  given  in  to  schismatic  rites,  and  were  free  from 
the  errors  of  Voluntaryism.  The  breath  of  the  numufact- 
uring  town,  which  made  a  cloudy  day  and  a  red  gloom  by 
night  on  the  horizon,  diffused  itself  over  all  the  surround- 
ing country,  filling  the  air  with  eager  unrest.  Here  was  a 
population  not  convinced  that  old  England  Avas  as  good  as 
possible;  here  were  multitudinous  men  and  women  aware 
tiiat  their  religion  was  not  exactly  the  religion  of  their 
rulers,  who  might  therefore  be  better  than  they  were,  and 
who,  if  better,  might  alter  many  things  which  now  made 
the  world  perhaps  more  painful  than  it  need  be,  and  cer- 
tainly more  sinful.  Yet  there  were  the  gray  steeples  too 
and  the  churchyards,  with  their  grassy  mounds  and  vener- 
able headstones,  sleeping  in  tlie  sunlight;  tliere  were  broad 


THE    RADICAL.  7 

^oMs  and  homesteads,  and  fine  old  woods  covering  a  rising 
■ground,  or  stretching  far  by  the  roadside,  allowing  only 
peeps  at  the  park  and  mansion  which  they  shut  in  from 
•:he  working-day  world.  In  these  midland  districts  the 
traveler  passed  rapidly  from  one  phase  of  English  life  to 
another:  after  looking  down  on  a  village  dingy  with  coal- 
dust,  noisy  with  the  shaking  of  looms,  he  might  skirt  a 
parish  all  of  fields,  high  hedges,  and  deep-rutted  lanes; 
after  the  coach  had  rattled  over  the  pavement  of  a  manu- 
facturing town,  the  scene  of  riots  and  trades-union  meet- 
ings, it  would  take  him  in  another  ten  minutes  into  a  rural 
region,  where  the  neighborhood  of  the  town  was  only  felt 
in  the  advantages  of  a  near  market  for  corn,  cheese,  and 
hay,  and  where  men  with  a  considerable  banking  account 
were  accustomed  to  say  that '' they  nerer  meddled  with 
politics  themselves."  The  busy  scenes  of  the  shuttle  and 
the  wheel,  of  the  roaring  furnace,  of  the  shaft  and  the 
])ulley,  seemed  to  make  but  crowded  nests  in  the  midst  of 
the  large-spaced,  slow-moving  life  of  homesteads  and  far- 
away cottages  and  oak-sheltered  parks.  Looking  at  the 
dwellings  scattered  amongst  the  woody  flats  and  the  plowed 
uplands,  under  the  low  gray  sky  which  overhung  them  with 
an  unchanging  stillness  as  if  Time  itself  were  pausing,  it 
was  easy  for  the  traveler  to  conceive  that  town  and  country 
had  no  pulse  in  common,  except  where  the  handlooms 
made  a  far-reacliing  straggling  fringe  about  the  great 
centres  of  manufacture;  that  till  the  agitation  about  the 
Catholics  in  '29,  rural  Englishmen  had  hardly  known 
more  of  Catholics  than  of  the  fossil  mammals;  and  that 
their  notion  of  Reform  was  a  confused  combination  of 
rick-burners,  trades-unions,  Nottingham  riots,  and  in  gen- 
eral whatever  required  the  calling  out  of  the  yeomanry. 
It  was  still  easier  to  see  that,  for  the  most  part,  they 
resisted  the  rotation  of  crops  and  stood  by  their  fallows: 
and  the  coachman  would  perhaps  tell  how  in  one  parish  an 
innovating  farmer,  who  talked  of  Sir  Humphrey  Davy, 
had  been  fairly  driven  out  by  popular  dislike,  as  if  he  had 
been  a  confounded  Radical;  and  how,  the  parson  having 
one  Sunday  preached  from  the  words,  ''  Break  up  your 
fallow-ground,"  the  people  thought  he  had  made  the  text 
out  of  his  own  head,  otherwise  it  would  never  have  come 
"so  pat"  on  a  matter  of  busiiicss;  but  when  they  found  it 
in  the  Bible  at  home,  some  said  it  was  an  argument  for 
fallows  (else  why  should  the  Bible  mention  fallows?),  bur 
u  few  of  the  weaker  sort  were  shaken,  and  thought  it  was 


8  FELIX    HOLT, 

ail  argument  that  fallows  sliouM  be  done  away  with,  else 
the  Bible  would  have  said,  "  Let  your  fallows  lie ";  and 
the  next  morning  the  parson  had  a  stroke  of  apoplexy, 
which,  as  coincident  with  a  dispute  about  fallows,  so  set 
the  parish  against  the  innovating  farmer  and  the  rotation 
of  crops,  that  he  could  stand  his  ground  no  longer,  and 
transferred  his  lease. 

The  coachman  was  an  excellent  traveling  comjoanion 
and  commentator  on  the  landscape:  he  could  tell  the 
names  of  sites  and  persons,  and  explain  the  meaning  of 
groups,  as  well  as  the  shade  of  Virgil  in  a  more  memorable 
journey;  he  had  as  many  stories  about  parishes,  and  the 
men  and  women  in  them,  as  the  Wanderer  in  the  "Excur- 
sion," only  his  style  was  different.  His  view  of  life  had 
originally  been  genial,  and  such  as  became  a  man  who  was 
well  warmed  within  and  without,  and  held  a  position  of 
easy,  undisputed  authority;  but  the  recent  initiation  of 
railways  had  embittered  him:  he  now,  as  in  a  perpetual 
vision,  saw  the  ruined  country  strewn  with  shattered 
limbs,  and  regarded  Mr.  Huskisson's  death  as  a  proof  of 
(rod's  anger  against  Stephenson.  "Why,  every  inn  on  the 
road  would  be  shut  up!"  and  at  that  word  the  coachman 
looked  before  him  with  the  blank  gaze  of  one  who  had 
driven  his  coach  to  the  outermost  edge  of  the  universe, 
and  saw  his  leaders  plunging  into  the  abyss.  Still  he 
would  soon  relapse  from  the  high  prophetic  strain  to  the 
familiar  one  of  narrative.  He  knew  whose  the  land  was 
wherever  he  drove;  what  noblemen  had  half-ruined  them- 
selves by  gambling;  who  made  handsome  returns  of  rent; 
and  who  was  at  daggers-drawn  with  his  eldest  son.  He 
perhaps  remembered  the  fathers  of  actual  baronets,  and 
knew  stories  of  their  extravagant  or  stingy  housekeeping; 
whom  they  had  married,  whom  they  had  horsewhipped, 
whether  they  were  particular  about  preserving  their  game, 
and  whether  they  had  had  much  to  do  with  canal  com- 
panies. About  any  actual  landed  proprietor  he  could 
also  tell  whether  he  was  a  Reformer  or  an  Anti-Eeformer. 
That  was  a  distinction  which  had  "turned  up"  in  latter 
•times,  and  along  with  it  the  paradox,  very  i^uzzling  to  the 
coachman's  mind,  that  there  were  men  of  old  family  and 
large  estate  who  voted  for  the  Bill.  He  did  not  grapple 
with  the  paradox^,  he  let  it  pass,  with  all  the  discreetness 
of  an  experienced  theologian  or  learned  scholiast,  pre- 
ferring to  point  his  whip  at  some  object  which  could  raise 
no  questions. 


THE    RA.DICAL.  y 

No  such  paradox  troubled  our  coachman  when,  leaving 
ihe  town  of  Treby  Magna  behind  him,  he  drove  between 
the  hedges  for  a  mile  or  so,  crossed  the  queer  long  bridge 
over  the  river  Lapp,  and  then  put  his  horses  to  a  swift 
gallop  up  the  hill  by  the  low-nestled  village  of  Little 
Treby,  till  they  were  on  the  fine  level  road,  skirted  on  one 
side  by  grand  larches,  oaks,  and  wych  elms,  which  some- 
times opened  so  far  as  to  let  the  traveler  see  that  there 
was  a  park  behind  them. 

How  many  times  in  the  year,  as  the  coach  rolled  past 
the  neglected-looking  lodges  which  interrupted  the  screen 
of  trees,  and  showed  the  river  winding  through  a  finely- 
timbered  park,  had  the  coachman  answered  the  same 
questions,  or  told  the  same  things  without  being  ques- 
tioned! That?  —  oh,  that  was  Transonic  Court,  a  place 
there  had  been  a  fine  sight  of  lawsuits  about.  Genera- 
tions back,  the  heir  of  the  Transome  name  had  somehow 
bargained  away  the  estate,  and  it  fell  to  the  Dnrfeys,  very 
distant  connections,  who  only  called  themselves  Transomes 
because  they  had  got  the  estate.  But  the  Durfeys'  claim 
had  been  disputed  over  and  over  again;  and  the  coach- 
man, if  he  had  been  asked,  Avould  have  said,  though  he 
might  have  to  fall  down  dead  the  next  minute,  that 
property  didn't  always  get  into  the  right  hands.  How- 
ever, the  lawyers  had  found  their  luck  in  it;  and  people 
who  inherited  estates  that  were  lawed  about  often  lived  in 
them  as  poorly  as  a  mouse  in  a  hollow  cheese;  and,  by 
what  he  could  make  out,  that  had  been  the  way  with 
these  present  Durfeys,  or  Transomes,  as  they  called  them- 
selves. As  for  Mr.  Transonic,  he  was  as  poor,  half-witted 
a  fellow  as  you'd  Avish  to  see;  but  she  was  master,  had 
come  of  a  high  family,  and  had  a  spirit  —  you  might  see 
it  in  her  eye  and  the  way  slie  sat  her  horse.  Forty  years 
ago,  when  she  came  into  this  country,  they  said  she  was  a 
pictur';  but  her  family  was  poor,  and  so  she  took  up  with 
a  hatchet-faced  fellow  like  this  Transome.  And  the 
eldest  son  had  been  just  such  another  as  his  father,  only 
.vorse  —  a  wild  sort  of  half -natural,  who  got  into  l)ad 
^;ompany.  They  said  his  mother  hated  him  and  wished 
him  dead;  for  she'd  got  another  son,  quite  of  a  diiferent 
cut,  who  had  gone  to  foreign  parts  when  he  was  a 
youngster,  and  she  wanted  her  favorite  to  be  heir.  But 
heir  or  no  heir,  Lawyer  Jermyn  had  had  his  picking  out 
of  the  estate.  Not  a  door  in  his  big  house  but  what  was 
the  finest  polished  oak,  all  got  off  the  Transome  estate. 


10  FELIX   HOLT, 

If  anybody  liked  to  believe  he  paid  for  it,  they  were 
welcome.  However,  Lawyer  Jermyn  had  sat  on  that  box- 
seat  many  and  many  a  time.  He  had  made  the  wills  of 
most  people  thereabont.  The  coachman  would  not  say 
that  Lawyer  Jermyn  was  not  the  man  he  would  choose  to 
make  his  own  will  some  day.  It  was  not  so  well  for  a 
lawyer  to  be  over-honest,  else  he  might  not  be  up  to  other 
people's  tricks.  And  as  for  the  Transome  business,  there 
had  been  ins  and  outs  in  time  gone  by,  so  that  you 
couldn't  look  into  straight  backward.  At  this  Mr. 
Sampson  (everybody  in  North  Loamshire  knew  Sampson's 
coach)  would  screw  his  features  into  a  grimace  expressive 
of  entire  neutrality,  and  appear  to  aim  his  whip  at  a  par- 
ticular spot  on  the  horse's  flank.  If  the  passenger  was 
curious  for  further  knowledge  concerning  the  Transome 
affairs,  Sampson  would  shake  his  head  and  say  there  had 
been  fine  stories  in  his  time;  but  he  never  condescended  to 
state  what  the  stories  were.  Some  attributed  this  reti- 
cence to  a  wise  incredulity,  others  to  a  want  of  memory, 
others  to  simple  ignorance.  But  at  least  Sampson  was 
right  in  saying  that  there  had  been  fine  stories  —  meaning, 
ironically,  stories  not  altogether  creditable  to  the  parties 
concerned. 

And  such  stories  often  come  to  be  fine  in  a  sense  that  is 
not  ironical.  For  there  is  seldom  any  wrong-doing  which 
does  not  carry  along  with  it  some  downfall  of  blindly- 
climbing  hopes,  some  hard  entail  of  suffering,  some  (juickly- 
satiated  desire  that  survives,  with  the  life  in  death  of  old 
paralytic  vice,  to  see  itself  cursed  by  its  woeful  progeny — 
some'  tragic  mark  of  kinship  in  the  one  brief  life  to  the 
far-stretching  life  that  went  ])efore,  and  to  the  life  that  is 
to  come  after,  such  as  has  raised  the  pity  and  terror  of 
men  ever  since  they  began  to  discern  between  will  and 
destiny.  But  these  things  are  often  unknown  to  the 
world;  for  there  is  much  pain  that  is  quite  noiseless;  and 
vibrations  that  make  human  agonies  are  often  a  mere 
whisper  in  the  roar  of  hurrying  existence.  There  are 
glances  of  hatred  that  stab  and  raise  no  cry  of  murdei", 
robberies  that  leave  man  or  woman  forever  beggared  of 
peace  and  joy,  yet  kept  secret  by  the  sufferer — committed 
to  no  sound  except  that  of  low  moans  in  the  night,  seen 
in  no  writing  except  that  made  on  tlie  face  by  the  slow 
months  of  suppressed  anguish  and  early  morning  tears. 
Many  an  inherited  sorrow  that  has  marred  a  life  has  been 
breathed  into  no  human  ear. 


THE    RADICAL.  11 

The  poets  have  told  us  of  a  dolorous  enchanted  forest  in 
the  under  world.  The  thorn-bushes  there,  and  the  thick- 
barked  stems,  have  human  histories  hidden  in  them;  the 
power  of  unuttered  cries  dwells  in  the  j)assionless-seeming 
branches,  and  the  red  warm  blood  is  darkly  feeding  the 
quivering  nerves  of  a  sleepless  memory  that  watches 
through  all  dreams.     These  things  are  a  parable. 


CHAPTEE  I. 

He  left  me  when  the  down  upon  his  lip 

Lay  like  the  shadow  of  a  hovering  kiss. 

"  Beautiful  mother,  do  not  grieve,"  he  said ; 

"  I  will  be  great,  and  build  our  fortunes  high, 

And  you  shall  wear  the  longest  train  at  coiurt, 

And  look  so  queenlj',  all  the  lords  shall  say, 

*  She  is  a  royal  changeling  :  there's  some  crown 

Lacks  the  right  head,  since  hers  wears  naught  but  braids.'  " 

O,  he  is  coming  now  —  but  T  am  graj' : 

And  he 

On"  the  first  of  September,  in  the  memorable  year  1833, 
some  one  was  expected  at  Transome  Court.  As  early  as 
two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  the  aged  lodge-keeper  had 
opened  the  heavy  gate,  green  as  the  tree  trunks  Avere  green 
with  nature's  powdery  paint,  deposited  year  after  year. 
Already  in  tlie  village  of  Little  Treby,  which  lay  on  the 
side  of  a  steep  hill  not  far  off  the  lodge  gates,  the  elder 
matrons  sat  in  their  best  gowns  at  the  few  cottage  doors 
bordering  the  road,  that  they  might  be  ready  to  get  up  and 
make  their  curtsy  when  a  traveling  carriage  should  come 
in  sight;  and  beyond  the  village  several  small  boys  were 
stationed  on  the  look-out,  intending  to  run  a  race  to  the 
barn-like  old  church,  where  the  sexton  waited  in  the  belfry 
ready  to  set  the  one  bell  in  joyful  agitation  just  at  the 
right  moment. 

The  old  lodge-keeper  had  opened  the  gate  and  left  it  in 
the  charge  of  his  lame  wife,  because  he  was  wanted  at  the 
Court  to  sweep  away  the  leaves,  and  perhaps  to  help  in 
the  stables.  For  though  Transome  Court  was  a  large 
^  mansion,  built  in  the  fashion  of  Queen  Anne's  time,  with 
a  park  and  grounds  as  fine  as  any  to  be  seen  in  Loamshire, 
there  Avere  very  few  servants  about  it.  Especially,  it 
seemed,  there  must  be  a  lack  of  gardeners;  for,  except  on 
the  terrace  surrounded  with  a  stone  parapet  in  front  of  tlie 


12  FELIX   HOLT, 

house,  where  there  was  a  parterre  kept  with  some  neat- 
ness, grass  had  spread  itself  over  the  gravel  walks,  and 
over  all  the  low  mounds  once  carefully  cut  as  black  beds 
for  tlie  shrubs  and  larger  plants.  Many  of  the  windows 
had  the  shutters  closed,  and  under  the  grand  Scotch  fir 
that  stooped  toward  one  corner,  the  brown  fir-needles  of 
many  years  lay  in  a  small  stone  balcony  in  front  of  two 
such  darkened  Avindows.  All  round,  both  near  and  far, 
there  were  grand  trees,  motionless  in  the  still  sunshine, 
and,  like  all  large  motionless  things,  seeming  to  add  to  the 
stillness.  Here  and  there  a  leaf  fluttered  down;  petals 
fell  in  a  silent  shower;  a  heavy  moth  floated  by,  and,  when 
it  settled,  seemed  to  fall  wearily;  the  tiny  birds  alighted 
on  the  walks,  and  hopped  about  in  perfect  tranquillity; 
even  a  stray  rabbit  sat  nibbling  a  leaf  that  was  to  its 
liking,  in  the  middle  of  a  grassy  space,  with  an  air  that 
seemed  quite  impudent  in  so  timid  a  creature.  No  sound 
Avas  to  be  heard  louder  than  a  sleepy  hum,  and  the  soft 
monotony  of  running  water  hurrying  on  to  the  river  that 
divided  the  park.  Standing  on  the  south  or  east  side  of 
the  house,  you  would  never  have  guessed  that  an  arrival 
was  expected. 

But  on  the  west  side,  where  the  carriage  entrance  was, 
the  gates  under  the  stone  archway  were  thrown  open;  and 
so  was  the  double  door  of  the  entrance-hall,  letting  in  the 
warm  light  on  the  scagliola  pillars,  the  marble  statues,  and 
the  broad  stone  staircase,  with  its  matting  worn  into  large 
holes.  And,  stronger  sign  of  expectation  than  all,  from 
one  of  the  doors  which  surrounded  the  entrance-hall,  there 
came  forth  from  time  to  time  a  lady,  who  walked  lightly 
over  the  polished  stone  floor,  and  stood  on  the  door-steps 
and  watched  and  listened.  She  walked  lightly,  for  her 
figure  was  slim  and  finely  formed,  though  she  was  between 
fifty  and  sixty.  She  was  a  tall,  proud-looking  woman, 
with  abundant  gray  hair,  dark  eyes  and  e3^ebrows,  and  a 
somewhat  eagle-like  yet  not  unfeminine  face.  Her  tight- 
fitting  black  dress  was  much  worn;  the  fine  lace  of  he- 
cuffs  and  collar,  and  of  the  small  veil  which  fell  back- 
ward over  her  high  comb,  was  visibly  mended;  but  rare 
jeAvels  flashed  on  her  hands,  wMch  lay  on  her  folded  black- 
clad  arms  like  finely-cut  onyx  cameos. 

Many  times  Mrs.  Transome  went  to  the  door-steps, 
watching  and  listening  in  vain.  Each  time  she  returned  t(i 
the  same  room;  it  was  a  moderate-sized,  comfortable  room, 
with  low  ebony  bookshelves  round  it,  and  it  formed  au  ante- 


THE    RADICAL.  13 

room  to  a  large  library,  of  which  a  glimpse  could  be  seen 
fchrough  an  open  doorway,  partly  obstructed  by  a  heavy 
tapestry  curtain  drawn  on  one  side.  There  was  a  great 
deal  of  tarnished  gilding  and  dinginess  on  the  walls  and 
furniture  of  this  smaller  room^  but  the  pictures  above  the 
bookcases  were  all  of  a  cheerful  kind:  portraits  in  pastel 
of  pearly-skinned  ladies  with  hair-powder,  blue  ribbons, 
and  low  bodices;  a  splendid  portrait  in  oils  of  a  Tran- 
some  in  the  gorgeous  dress  of  the  Restoration;  another  of 
a  Transome  in  his  boyhood,  with  his  hand  on  the  neck  of 
a  small  pony;  and  a  large  Flemish  battle-piece,  where  war 
seemed  only  a  picturesque  blue-and-red  accident  in  a  vast 
sunny  expanse  of  plain  and  sky.  Probal)ly  such  cheerful 
pictures  had  been  chosen  because  this  was  Mrs.  Transome's 
usual  sitting-room:  it  was  certainly  for  this  reason  that, 
near  the  chair  in  which  she  seated  herself  each  time  she 
re-entered,  there  hung  a  picture  of  a  youthful  face  which 
bore  a  strong  resemblance  to  her  own:  a  beardless  but 
masculine  face,  with  rich  brown  hair  hanging  low  on  the 
forehead,  and  undulating  beside  each  cheek  down  to  the 
loose  white  cravat.  Near  this  same  chair  were  her  writing- 
table,  with  vellum-covered  account-books  on  it,  the  cabi- 
net in  which  she  kept  her  neatly-arranged  drugs,  her 
basket  for  her  embroidery,  a  folio  volume  of  architectural 
engravings  from  which  she  took  her  embroidery-patterns, 
a  number  of  the  ''North  Loamshire  Herald,"  and  the 
cushion  for  her  fat  Blenheim,  which  was  too  old  and  sleepy 
to  notice  its  mistress's  restlessness.  For,  just  now,  Mrs. 
Transome  could  not  abridge  the  sunny  tedium  of  the  day 
by  the  feeble  interest  of  her  usual  indoor  occupations. 
Her  consciousness  was  absorbed  by  memories  and  pros- 
pects, and  except  that  she  walked  to  the  entrance-door  to 
look  out,  she  sat  motionless  with  folded  arms,  involun- 
tarily from  time  to  time  turning  toward  the  portrait  close 
by  her,  and  as  often,  when  its  young  brown  eyes  met  hers, 
turning  aAvay  again  with  self-checking  resolution. 

At  last,  prompted  by  some  sudden  thought  or  by  some 
sound,  she  rose  and  went  hastily  beyond  the  tapestry  cur- 
tain into  the  library.  She  paused  near  the  door  without 
speaking:  apparently  she  only  wished  to  see  that  no  harm 
was  being  done.  A  man  nearer  seventy  than  sixty  was  in 
the  act  of  ranging  on  a  large  library-table  a  series  of  shal- 
low drawers,  some  of  them  containing  dried  insects,  others 
mineralogical  specimens.  His  pale  mild  eyes,  receding 
lower  jaw,  and  slight  frame,  could  never  have  expressed 


14  FELIX   HOLT, 

much  vigor,  either  bodil}'  or  mental;  but  he  had  now  the 
unevenness  of  gait  and  feebleness  of  gesture  which  tell  of 
a  past  paralytic  seizure.  His  threadbare  clothes  were 
thoroughly  brushed;  his  soft  white  hair  was  carefully 
parted  and  arranged:  he  was  not  a  neglected-looking  old 
man;  and  at  his  side  a  fine  black  retriever,  also  old,  sat  on 
its  haunches,  and  watched  him  as  he  went  to  and  fro. 
But  when  Mrs.  Transome  appeared  within  the  doorway, 
her  husband  paused  in  his  work  and  shrank  like  a  timid 
animal  looked  at  in  a  cage  where  flight  was  impossible. 
He  was  conscious  of  a  troublesome  intention,  for  which  he 
had  been  rebuked  before — that  of  disturbing  all  his  speci- 
mens with  a  view  to  a  new  arrangement. 

After  an  interval,  in  which  his  wife  stood  perfectly  still, 
observing  him,  he  began  to  put  back  the  drawers  in  their 
places  in  the  row  of  cabinets  which  extended  under  the 
taookshelves  at  one  end  of  the  library.  When  they  were  all 
put  back  and  closed,  Mrs.  Transome  turned  away,  and  the 
frightened  old  man  seated  himself  with  Nimrod  the 
retriever  on  an  ottoman.  Peeping  at  him  again,  a  few 
minutes  after,  she  saw  that  he  had  his  arm  round  Nimrod's 
neck,  and  was  uttering  his  thoughts  to  the  dog  in  a  loud 
whisper,  as  little  children  do  to  any  object  near  them  when 
they  believe  themselves  unwatched. 

At  last  the  sound  of  the  church-bell  reached  Mrs.  Tran- 
some's  ear,  and  she  knew  that  before  long  the  sound  of 
wheels  must  be  within  hearing;  but  she  did  not  at  once 
start  up  and  walk  to  the  entrance-door.  She  sat  still, 
quivering  and  listening;  her  lips  became  pale,  her  hands 
were  cold  and  trembling.  Was  her  son  really  coming? 
She  was  far  beyond  fifty;  and  since  her  early  gladness  in 
this  best-loved  boy,  the  harvests  of  her  lifs  had  been  scanty. 
Could  it  be  that  now — when  her  hair  was  gray,  Avhen  sight 
had  become  one  of  the  day^s  fatigues,  when  her  young 
accomplishments  seemed  almost  ludicrous,  like  the  tone  of 
lier  first  harpsi-chord  and  the  words  of  the  songs  long 
browned  with  age — she  was  going  to  reap  an  assured  joy? 
to  feel  that  the  doubtful  deeds  of  her  life  were  justified  by 
the  result,  since  a  kind  Providence  had  sanctioned  them  ? — 
to  be  no  longer  tacitly  pitied  by  her  neighbors  for  her  lack 
of  money,  her  imbecile  husband,  her  graceless  eldest-born, 
and  the  loneliness  of  her  life;  but  to  have  at  her  side  a  rich, 
clever,  possibly  a  tender,  son?  Yes;  but  there  were  the 
fifteen  years  of  separation,  and  all  that  had  happened  in 
that  Ipng  time  to  throw  her  into  the  background  of  her 


THE   llADiCAL.  15 

son's  memory  and  affection.  And  yet — did  not  men  some- 
times become  more  filial  in  their  feeling  when  exjjerience 
had  mellowed  them,  and  they  had  themselves  become 
fathers?  Still,  if  Mrs.  Transome  had  expected  only  he? 
son,  she  would  have  trembled  less;  she  expected  a  little 
grandson  also:  and  there  were  reasons  why  she  had  not  been 
enraptured  when  her  son  had  written  to  her  only  when  ho 
was  on  the  eve  of  returning  that  he  already  had  an  heir 
born  to  him. 

But  the  facts  must  be  accepted  as  they  stood,  and,  after 
all,  the  chief  thing  was  to  have  her  son  back  again.  Such 
pride,  such  affection,  such  hopes  as  she  cherished  in  this 
fifty-sixth  year  of  her  life,  must  find  their  gratification  in 
him — or  nowhere.  Once  more  she  glanced  at  the  portraito 
The  young  brown  eyes  seemed  to  dwell  on  her  pleasanth; 
but,  turning  from  it  with  a  sort  of  impatience,  and  saying 
aloud,  "  Of  course  he  will  be  altered!"  she  rose  almost  with 
difficulty,  and  walked  more  slowly  than  before  across  the 
hall  to  the  entrance-door. 

Already  the  sound  of  wheels  was  loud  upon  the  gravel. 
The  momentary  surprise  of  seeing  that  it  was  only  a  post- 
chaise,  without  a  servant  or  much  luggage,  that  was  pass- 
ing under  the  stone  archway  and  then  wheeling  round 
against  the  flight  of  stone  steps,  was  at  once  merged  in 
the  sense  that  there  was  a  dark  face  under  a  red  traveling- 
cap  looking  at  her  from  the  window.  She  saw  nothing 
else;  she  was  not  even  conscious  that  the  small  grou])  of  her 
own  servants  had  mustered,  or  that  old  Hickes  the  butler 
had  come  forward  to  open  the  chaise  door.  She  heard 
herself  called  "Mother!"  and  felt  a  light  kiss  on  each 
cheek;  but  stronger  than  all  that  sensation  was  the  con^ 
sciousness  which  no  previous  thought  could  prepare  her  for, 
that  this  son  who  had  come  back  to  her  was  a  stranger. 
Three  minutes  before,  she*  had  fancied  that,  in  spite  of  all 
changes  wrought  by  fifteen  years  of  separatioi},  she  should 
clasp  her  son  again  as  she  had  done  at  their  parting;  but 
in  the  moment  when  their  eyes  met,  the  sense  of  strange- 
ness came  upon  her  like  a  terror.  It  was  not  hard  to 
unders-tand  that  she  was  agitated,  and  the  son  led  her 
across  the  hall  to  the  sitting-room,  closing  the  door  behind 
them.     Then  he  turned  toward  her  and  said,  smiling — 

"You  would  not  have  known  me,  eh,  mother?" 

It  was  perhaps  the  truth.     If  she  had  seen  him  in  a 

crowd,  she  might  have  looked  at  him  without  recogni- 

ion — not,  however,  without  startled  wonder;  for  though 


16  FELIX    HOLT, 

chs  likeness  to  herself  was  no  longer  striking,  the  years 
had  overlaid  it  with  another  likeness  which  would  have 
arrested  her.  Before  she  answered  him,  his  eyes,  with  a 
keen  restlessness,  as  unlike  as  possible  to  the  lingering 
:>-aze  of  the  portrait,  had  traveled  quickly  over  the  room, 
alighting  on  her  again  as  she  said — 

' '  Everything  is  changed,  Harold.  I  am  an  old  woman, 
you  see." 

''But  straighter  and  more  upright  than  some  of  the 
young  ones!"  said  Harold;  inwardly,  however,  feeling 
that  age  had  made  his  mother's  face  very  anxious  and 
eager.  "The  old  women  at  Smyrna  are  like  sacks. 
You've  not  got  clumsy  and  shapeless.  How  is  it  I  have 
the  trick  of  getting  fat?"  (Here  Harold  lifted  his  arm 
and  spread  out  his  plump  hand.)  "I  remember  my 
father  was  as  thin  as  a  herring.  How  is  my  father? 
Where  is  he?" 

Mrs.  Transome  just  pointed  to  the  curtained  doorway,  ana 
let  her  son  pass  through  it  alone.  She  was  not  given  to 
tears;  but  now,  under  the  pressure  of  emotion  that  could 
find  no  other  vent,  they  burst  forth.  She  took  care  that 
they  should  be  silent  tears,  and  before  Harold  came  out 
of  the  library  again  they  were  dried.  Mrs.  Transome  had 
not  the  feminine  tendency  to  seek  influence  through  pathos; 
she  had  been  used  to  rule  in  virtue  of  acknowledged  supe- 
riority. The  consciousness  that  she  had  to  make  her 
son's  acquaintance,  and  that  her  knowledge  of  the  youth 
of  nineteen  might  help  her  little  in  interpreting  the  man 
of  thirty -four,  had  fallen  like  lead  on  her  soul;  but  in  this 
new  acquaintance  of  theirs  she  cared  especially  that  her 
son,  who  had  seen  a  strange  world,  should  feel  that  he  was 
come  home  to  a  mother  who  was  to  be  consulted  on  all 
things,  and  who  could  supply  his  lack  of  the  local  expe- 
rience necessary  to  an  English  landholder.  Her  part  in  life 
had  been  that  of  the  clever  sinner,  and  she  was  equipped 
Avith  the  views,  the  reasons,  and  the  habits  which  belonged 
to  that  character:  life  would  have  little  meaning  for  her 
if  she  were  to  be  gently  thrust  aside  as  a  harmless  elderly 
woman.  And  besides,  there  were  secrets  which  her  son 
must  never  know.  So,  by  the  time  Harold  came  from  the 
library  again,  the  traces  of  tears  were  not  discernible, 
except  to  a  very  careful  observer.  And  he  did  not  observe 
his  mother  carefully;  his  eyes  only  glanced  at  her  on  their 
way  to  the  "Xnr:h'Loamshire  Herald,"  lying  on  the  table 
near  her,  which  he  took  up  with  his  left  hand,  as  he  said — 


THE    RADICAL.  17 

"Gad!  what  a  wreck  poor  father  is!  Paralysis,  eh? 
Terribly  shrunk  and  shaken — crawls  about  among  his  books 
and  beetles  as  usual,  though.  Well,  it's  a  sIoav  and  easy 
death.     But  he's  not  much  over  sixty-five,  is  he?" 

"Sixty-seven,  counting  by  birthdays;  but  your  father 
was  born  old,  I  think,"  said  Mrs,  Transome,  a  little  flushed 
with  the  determination  not  to  show  any  unasked  for  feeling. 

Her  son  did  not  notice  her.  All  the  time  he  had  been 
speaking  his  eyes  had  been  running  down  the  columns  of 
the  newspaper. 

"But  your  little  boy,  Harold — where  is  he?  How  is  it 
he  has  not  come  with  you?" 

"Oh,  I  left  him  behind,  in  town,"  said  Harold,  still 
looking  at  the  paper.  "  My  man  Dominic  will  bring  him, 
with  the  rest  of  the  luggage.  Ah,  I  see  it  is  young  Debarry, 
and  not  my  old  friend,  Sir  Maximus,  who  is  offering  him- 
self as  candidate  for  Xorth  Loamshire." 

"  Yes.  You  did  not  answer  me  when  I  wrote  to  you  to 
London  about  your  standing.  There  is  no  other  Tory 
candidate  spoken  of,  and  you  would  have  all  the  Debarry 
interest." 

"I  hardly  think  that,"  said  Harold,  significantly. 

"  Why?  Jermyn  says  a  Tory  candidate  can  never  be  got 
in  without  it." 

"But  I  shall  not  be  a  Tory  candidate." 

Mrs.  Transome  felt  something  like  an  electric  shock. 

"  What  then? "  she  said,  almost  sharply.  "  You  will  not 
call  yourself  a  Whig? " 

"God  forbid!     I'm  a  Radical." 

Mrs.  Transome's  limbs  tottered;  she  sank  into  a  chair. 
Here  was  a  distinct  confirmation  of  the  vague  but  strong 
feeling  that  her  son  was  a  stranger  to  her.  Here  was  a 
revelation  to  which  it  seemed  almost  as  impossible  to 
adjust  her  hopes  and  notions  of  a  dignified  life  as  if  her 
son  had  said  that  he  had  been  converted  to  Mahometan  ism 
at  Smyrna,  and  had  four  wives,  instead  of  one  son,  shortly 
to  arrive  under  the  care  of  Dominic.  For  the  moment 
she  had  a  sickening  feeling  tliat  it  was  all  of  no  use  that 
the  long-delayed  good  fortune  had  come  at  last — all  of  ilo 
use  though  the  unloved  Durfey  was  dead  and  buried,  and 
thougli  Harold  had  come  home  with  plenty  of  money. 
There  were  rich  Radicals,  she  was  aware,  as  there  were 
rich  Jews  and  Dissenters,  but  she  had  never  thought  of 
them  as  county  people.  Sir  Francis  Burdett  had  been 
generally  regarded  as  a  madman.     It  was  better  to  ask 


18  FELIX    HOLTj 

no  questions,  but  silently  to  prepare  herself  for  anything 
else  there  might  be  to  come. 

'MVill  you  go  to  your  rooms,  Harold,  and  see  if  there  is 
anything  you  would  like  to  have  altered?" 

''Yes,  let  us  go,"  said  Harold,  throwing  down  the  news- 
paper, in  which  he  had  been  rapidly  reading  almost  every 
advertisement  while  his  mother  had  been  going  through 
lier  sharp  inward  struggle.  "Uncle  Lingon  is  on  the 
bench  still,  I  see,"  he  went  on,  as  he  followed  her  across 
the  hall ;  "is  he  at  home — will  he  be  here  this  evening  ?" 

"He  says  you  must  go  to  the  rectory  when  you  want  to 
see  him.  You  must  remember  you  have  come  back  to 
a  family  who  have  old-fashioned  notions.  Your  uncle 
thought  I  ought  to  have  you  to  myself  in  the  first  hour 
or  two.  He  remembered  that  I  had  not  seen  my  son  for 
fifteen  years." 

"Ah,*^  by  Jove!  fifteen  years — so  it  is!"  said  Harold, 
taking  his  mother's  hand  and  drawing  it  under  his  arm  ; 
for  he  had  perceived  that  her  words  were  charged  with 
an  intention.  "And  you  are  as  straight  as  an  arrow 
still ;  you  AviJl  carry  the  shawls  I  have  brought  you  as 
w^ell  as  ever." 

They  walked  up  the  broad  stone  steps  together  in 
silence.  Under  the  shock  of  discovering  her  son's  Radi- 
calism, Mrs.  Transome  had  no  impulse  to  say  one  thing 
rather  than  another  ;  as  in  a  man  Avho  had  just  been 
branded  on  the  forehead  all  wonted  motives  would  be 
uprooted.  Harold,  on  his  side,  had  no  wish  opposed  to 
filial  kindness,  but  his  busy  thoughts  were  imperiously 
determined  by  habits  which  had  no  reference  to  any 
woman's  feeling ;  and  even  if  he  could  have  conceived 
what  his  mother's  feeling  was,  his  mind,  after  that 
momentary  arrest  would  have  darted  forward  on  its  usual 
course. 

"I  have  given  you  the  south  rooms,  Harold,"  said  Mrs. 
Transome,  as  they  ])assed  along  a  corridor  lit  from  above 
and  lined  with  old  family  pictures.  "I  thought  they 
would  suit  you  best,  as  they  all  open  into  each  other,  and 
this  middle  one  will  make  a  pleasant  sitting-room  for 
you." 

"Gad!  the  furniture  is  in  a  bad  state,"  said  Harold, 
glancing  round  at  the  middle  room  which  they  had  just 
entered;  "the  moths  seem  to  have  got  into  the  carpets 
and  hangings." 

"  I  had  no  choice  except  moths  or  tenants  who  would 


THE    RADICAL.  19 

pay  rent,"  said  Mrs.  Transome.     "We  liave  been  too  poor 
to  "keep  servants  for  uninhabited  rooms." 

"What !  you've  been  rather  }iinched,  eh?" 

"You  find  us  living  as  we  have  been  living  these  twelve 
years." 

"Ah,  you've  had  Durfey's  debts  as  well  as  the  law- 
suits— confound  tliem!  It  will  make  a  hole  in  sixty 
tliousand  pounds  to  pay  off  the  mortgages.  However, 
he's  gone  now,  poor  fellow  ;  and  I  suppose  I  should  have 
spent  more  in  buying  an  English  estate  some  time  or 
other.  I  always  meant  to  be  an  Englishman,,  and  thrash 
a  lord  or  two  who  thrashed  me  at  Eton." 

"  I  hardly  thought  you  could  have  meant  that,  Harold, 
when  I  found  you  had  married  a  foreign  wife." 

"Would  you  have  had  me  wait  for  a  consumptive  lacka- 
daisical Englishwoman,  who  would  have  hung  all  her 
relations  around  my  neck  ?  I  hate  English  wives ;  they 
Avant  to  give  their  opinion  about  everything.  They  inter- 
fere with  a  man's  life.     I  shall  not  marry  again." 

Mrs.  Transome  bit  lier  lip,  and  turned  away  to  draw  up 
a  blind.  She  would  not  reply  to  words  which  showed  how 
completely  any  conception  of  herself  and  her  feelings  was 
excluded  from  her  son's  inward  world. 

As  she  turned  round  again  she  said,  "I  suppose  you 
have  been  used  to  great  luxury;  these  rooms  look  miser- 
able to  you,  but  you  can  soon  make  any  alterations  vou 
like." 

"Oh,  I  must  have  a  private  sitting-room  fitted  up  for 
myself  down-stairs.  And  the  rest  are  bed-rooms,  I  sup- 
pose," he  went  on,  opening  a  side-door.  "  Ah,  I  can  sleep 
here  a  night  or  two.  But  there's  a  bedroom  down-stairs, 
with  an  ante-room,  I  remember,  that  would  do  for  my 
man  Dominic  and  the  little  boy.  I  should  like  to  have 
that." 

"  Your  father  has  slept  there  for  years.  He  will  be  like 
a  distracted  insect,  and  never  know  where  to  go,  if  you 
alter  the  track  he  has  to  walk  in." 

"  That's  a  pity.     I  hate  going  up-stairs." 

"There  is  the  steward's  room:  it  is  not  used,  and  might 
be  turned  into  a  bedroom.  T  can't  offer  you  my  room,  for 
I  sleep  up-stairs,"  (Mrs.  Transome's  tongue  could  be  a 
whip  upon  occasion,  but  the  lash  had  not  fallen  on  a  sen- 
sitive spot.) 

"No;  I'm  determined  not  to  sleep  up-stairs.  We'll  see 
about  the  steward's  room  to-morrow,  and  I  dare  say  I  shall 


20  FELIX   HOLT, 

find  a  closet  of  some  sort  for  Dominic.  It's  a  nuisance  he 
hud  to  stay  behind,  for  I  shall  have  nobody  to  cook  for 
me.  Ah,  there's  the  old  river  I  used  to  fish  in.  I  often 
thought,  when  I  was  at  Smyrna,  that  I  would  buy  a  park 
Avitli  a  river  through  it  as  much  like  the  Lapp  as  possible. 
Gad,  what  fine  oaks  those  are  opposite!  Some  of  them 
must  come  down,  though." 

"I've  held  every  tree  sacred  on  the  demesne,  as  I  told 
you,  Harold.  I  trusted  to  your  getting  the  estate  some 
time,  and  releasing  it;  and  I  determined  to  keep  it  worth 
releasing.  A  park  without  fine  timber  is  no  better  than  a 
beauty  without  teeth  and  hair." 

"Bravo,  mother!"  said  Harold,  putting  his  hand  on  her 
shoulder.  "  Ah,  you've  had  to  worry  yourself  about  things 
that  don't  properly  belong  to  a  woman  —  my  father  being- 
weakly.  We'll  set  all  that  right.  You  shall  have  nothing 
to  do  now  but  to  be  grandmamma  on  satin  cushions." 

"  You  must  excuse  me  from  the  satin  cushions.  That 
is  a  part  of  the  old  woman's  duty  I  am  not  prepared  for. 
I  am  used  to  be  chief  bailiff,  and  to  sit  in  the  saddle  two  or 
three  hours  every  day.  There  are  tAvo  farms  on  our. hands 
besides  the  Home  Farm." 

"Phew-ew!  Jermyn  manages  the  estate  badly,  then. 
That  will  not  last  under  my  reign,"  said  Harold,  turning 
on  his  heel  and  feeling  in  his  pockets  for  the  keys  of  his 
portmanteaus,  which  had  been  brought  up. 

"  Perhaps  when  you've  been  in  England  a  little  longer," 
said  Mrs.  Transome,  coloring  as  if  she  had  been  a  girl, 
"you  will  understand  better  the  difficulty  there  is  in  let- 
ting farms  in  these  times." 

"1  understand  the  difficulty  perfectly,  mother.  To  let 
farms,  a  man  must  have  the  sense  to  see  what  will  make 
them  inviting  to  farmers,  and  to  get  sense  supplied  on 
demand  is  just  the  most  difficult  transaction  I  know  of. 
I  suppose  if  I  ring  there's  some  fellow  who  can  act  as  valet 
and  learn  to  attend  to  my  hookah?" 

"There  is  Hickes  the  butler,  and  there  is  Jabez  the 
footman;  those  are  all  the  men  in  the  house.  They  were 
here  when  you  left." 

"Oh,  I  remember  Jabez  —  he  was  a  dolt.  I'll  have  old 
Hiciies.  He  was  a  neat  little  machine  of  a  butler;  his 
words  used  to  come  like  the  clicks  of  an  engine.  He  must 
be  an  old  machine  now,  though." 

"You  seem  to  remember  some  things  about  home 
wonderfully  well,  Harold." 


THE    RADICAL.  31 

'' Never  forget  places  and  people  —  how  they  look  and 
what  can  be  done  with  them.  All  the  country  round  here 
lies  like  a  map  in  my  brain.  A  deuced  pretty  country  too: 
but  the  people  were  a  stupid  set  of  old  Whigs  and  Tories. 
I  suppose  they  are  much  as  they  Avere." 

"I  am,  at  least,  Harold.  You  are  the  first  of  your 
family  that  ever  talked  of  being  a  Eadical,  I  did  not 
think  I  was  taking  care  of  our  old  oaks  for  that.  I  always 
thought  Eadicals'  houses  stood  staring  above  poor  sticks  of 
young  trees  and  iron  hurdles." 

"  Yes,  but  the  Eadical  sticks  are  growing,  mother,  and 
half  the  Tory  oaks  are  rotting,"  said  Harold,  with  gay 
carelessness.  ''  You've  arranged  for  Jermyn  to  be  earl\' 
to-morrow?" 

''  He  will  be  here  to  breakfast  at  nine.  But  I  leave 
you  to  Hickes  now;  we  dine  in  an  hour." 

Mrs.  Transome  went  awa}^  and  shut  herself  in  her  own 
dressing-room.  It  had  come  to  pass  now  —  this  meeting 
with  the  son  Avho  had  been  the  object  of  so  much  longing; 
whom  she  had  longed  for  before  he  was  born,  for  whom 
she  had  sinned,  from  whom  she  had  wrenched  herself 
with  pain  at  their  parting,  and  wltose  coming  again  had 
been  the  one  great  hope  of  her  years.  The  moment  was 
gone  by;  there  had  been  no  ecstasy,  no  gladness  even; 
hardly  half  an  hour  liad  passed,  and  few  words  had  been 
spoken,  yet  with  that  quickness  in  weaving  new  futures 
which  belongs  to  women  whose  actions  have  kept  them  in 
habitual  fear  of  consequences,  Mrs.  Transome  thought  she 
saw  with  all  the  clearness  of  demonstration  that  her  son's 
return  had  not  been  a  good  for  her  in  the  sense  of  making 
her  any  happier. 

She  stood  before  a  tall  mirror,  going  close  to  it  and 
looking  at  her  face  with  hard  scrutiny,  as  if  it  were  unre- 
lated to  herself.  No  elderly  face  can  be  handsome,  looked 
at  in  that  way;  every  little  detail  is  startlingly  prominent, 
and  the  effect  of  the  whole  is  lost.  She  saw  the  dried-up» 
complexion,  and  the  deep  lines  of  bitter  discontent  about 
the  mouth. 

"'I  am  a  hag!"  she  said  to  herself  (she  was  accustomed 
to  give  'her  thoughts  a  very  sharp  outline),  "  an  ugly  old 
woman  who  happens  to  be  his  mother.  That  is  what  he 
sees  in  me,  as  I  see  a  stranger  in  him.  I  shall  count  for 
nothing.     I  was  foolish  to  expect  anything  else." 

She  turned  away  from  the  mirror  and  walked  up  and 
down  her  room. 


22  FELIX    HOLT, 

"What  M  likeness!"  she  said,  in  a  lond  whisper;  "yet, 
perhaps,  no  one  will  see  it  besides  me." 

She  threw  herself  into  a  chair,  and  sat  with  a  fixed  look, 
seeing  nothing  that  was  actually  present,  but  mwardlj 
seeing  with  painful  vividness  what  had  been  present  with 
her  a  little  more  than  thirty  years  ago — the  little  round- 
limbed  creature  that  had  been  leaning  against  her  knees, 
and  stamping  tiny  feet,  and  looking  up  at  her  with 
gurgling  laughter.  She  had  thought  that  the  possession 
of  this  child  would  give  unity  to  her  life,  and  make  some 
gladness  through  the  changing  years  that  would  grow  as 
fruit  out  of  these  early  maternal  caresses.  But  nothing 
had  come  just  as  she  had  wished.  The  mother's  early 
raptures  had  lasted  but  a  short  time,  and  even  while  they 
lasted  there  had  grown  up  in  the  midst  of  them  a  hungry 
desire,  like  a  black  poisonous  plant  feeding  in  the  sun- 
light,—  the  desire  that  her  first,  rickety,  ugly,  imbecile 
child  should  die,  and  leave  room  for  her  darling,  of  whom 
she  could  be  proud.  Such  desires  make  life  a  hideous 
lottery,  where  every  day  may  turn  up  a  blank;  where 
men  and  women  who  have  the  softest  beds  and  the 
most  delicate  eating,  who  have  a  very  large  share  of  that 
sky  and  earth  which  some  are  born  to  have  no  more  of 
than  the  fraction  to  be  got  in  a  crowded  entry,  yet  grow 
haggard,  fevered,  and  restless,  like  those  who  watch  in 
other  lotteries.  Day  after  day,  year  after  year,  had  yielded 
blanks;  new  cares  had  come,  bringing  other  desires  for 
results  quite  beyond  her  grasp,  which  must  also  be  watched 
for  in  the  lottery;  and  all  the  while  the  round-limbed  pet 
had  been  growing  into  a  strong  youtli,  who  liked  many 
things  better  than  his  mother's  caresses,  and  who  had  a 
much  keener  consciousness  of  his  independent  existence 
than  of  his  relation  to  her:  the  lizard's  egg,  that  white 
rounded  passive  prettiness,  had  become  a  brown,  darting, 
determined  lizard.  The  mother's  love  is  at  first  an  absorb- 
ing delight,  blunting  all  other  sensibilities;  it  is  an 
expansion  of  the  animal  existence;  it  enlarges  the  imag- 
ined range  for  self  to  move  in:  but  in  after  years  it  can 
only  continue  to  be  joy  on  the  same  terms  as  other  long- 
lived  love — tliat  is,  by  much  suppression  of  self,  and 
power  of  living  in  the  experience  of  another.  Mrs. 
Transonic  had  darkly  felt  the  pressure  of  that  unchange- 
able fact.  Yet  she  had  clung  to  the  belief  that  somehow 
the  possession  of  this  son  was  the  best  thing  she  lived  for; 
to  believe  otherwise  would   have  made    her   memorv  too 


THE   RADICAL.  23 

ghastly  a  companion.  Some  time  or  other,  by  some  means, 
the  estate  she  was  struggling  to  save  from  the  grasp  of  the 
law  would  be  Harold's.  Somehow  the  hated  Durfey,  the 
imbecile  eldest,  who  seemed  to  have  become  tenacious  of  a 
despicable  squandering  life,  would  be  got  rid  of;  vice  might 
kill  him.  Meanwhile  the  estate  was  burdened:  there  was 
no  good  prospect  for  any  heir.  Harold  must  go  and  make 
a  career  for  himself-  and  this  was  what  he  was  bent  on, 
with  a  precocious  clearness  of  perception  as  to  the  con- 
ditions on  which  he  could  hope  for  any  advantages  in  life. 
Like  most  energetic  natures,  he  had  a  strong  faith  in  his 
luck;  he  had  been  gay  at  their  parting,  and  had  promised 
to  make  his  fortune;  and  in  spite  of  past  disappointments, 
Harold's  possible  fortune  still  made  some  ground  for  his 
mother  to  plant  her  hopes  in.  His  luck  had  not  failed 
him;  yet  nothing  had  turned  out  according  to  her  expec- 
tations. Her  life  had  been  like  a  spoiled  shabby  pleasiire- 
day,  in  which  the  music  and  the  processions  are  all  missed, 
and  nothing  is  left  at  evening  but  the  weariness  of  striving 
after  what  has  been  failed  of.  Harold  had  gone  with  the 
Embassy  to  Constantinople,  under  the  patronage  of  a  high 
relative,  his  mother's  cousin;  he  was  to  be  diplomatist,  and 
work  his  way  upward  in  public  like.  But  his  luck  had 
taken  another  shape:  he  had  saved  the  life  of  an  Armenian 
banker,  who  in  gratitude  had  offered  him  a  prospect  which 
his  practical  mind  had  preferred  to  the  problematic  prom- 
ises of  diplomacy  and  high-born  cousinship.  Harold  had 
become  a  merchant  and  banker  at  Smyrna;  had  let  the 
years  pass  without  caring  to  find  the  possibility  of  visiting 
his  early  home,  and  had  shown  no  eagerness  to  make  his 
life  at  all  familiar  to  his  mother,  asking  for  letters  about 
England,  but  writing  scantily  about  himself.  Mrs.  Tran- 
some  had  kept  iiyt  the  habit  of  Avriting  to  her  son,  but 
gradually  the  unfruitful  years  had  dulled  her  hopes  and 
yearnings;  increasing  anxieties  about  money  had  worried 
her,  and  she  was  more  sure  of  being  fretted  by  bad  news 
about  her  dissolute  eldest  son  than  of  hearing  anything  to 
cheer  her  from  Harold.  She  luid  begun  to  live  merely  in 
small  immediate  cares  and  occupations,  and  like  all  eager- 
minded  women  who  advance  in  life  without  any  activity 
of  tenderness  or  any  large  sympathy,  she  had  contracted 
small  rigid  habits  of  thinking  and  acting,  she  had  her 
''ways"  which  must  not  be  crossed,  and  had  learned  to 
All  up  the  great  void  of  life  with  giving  small  orders  to 
tenants,  insisting  on  medicines  for  infirm  cottagers,  winning 


24  FELIX   HOLT, 

small  triumphs  in  bargains  and  personal  economies,  and 
,  parrying  ill-natured  remarks  of  Lady  Debarry's  by  lancet- 
■  edged  epigrams.  So  lier  life  had  gone  on  till  more  than  a 
year  ago,  when  that  desire  which  had  been  so  hungry  when 
she  was  a  blooming  young  mother,  was  at  last  fulfilled — at 
last,  when  her  hair  was  gray,  and  her  face  looked  bitter, 
restless,  and  unenjoying,  like  her  life.  The  news  came 
from  Jersey  that  Durfey,  the  imbecile  son,  was  dead.  Noiu 
Harold  was  heir  to  the  estate;  now  the  wealth  he  had 
gained  could  release  the  land  from  its  burdens;  now  he 
would  think  it  worth  while  to  return  home.  A  change  had 
come  over  her  life,  and  the  sunlight  breaking  the  clouds 
at  evening  was  pleasant,  though  the  sun  must  sink  before 
long.  Hopes,  affections,  the  sweeter  part  of  her  memories, 
started  from  their  wintry  sleep,  and  it  once  more  seemed  a 
great  good  to  have  had  a  second  son  who  in  some  ways  had 
cost  her  dearly.  But  again  there  were  conditions  she  had 
not  reckoned  on.  When  the  good  tidings  had  been  sent  to 
Harold,  and  he  had  announced  that  he  would  return  so 
soon  as  he  could  wind  up  his  affairs,  he  had  for  the  first 
time  informed  his  mother  that  he  had  been  married,  that 
his  Greek  wife  was  no  longer  living,  but  that  he  should 
bring  home  a  little  boy,  the  finest  and  most  desirable  of  heirs 
and  grandsons.  Harold  seated  in  his  distant  Smyrna  home 
considered  that  he  was  taking  a  rational  view  of  what 
things  must  have  become  by  this  time  at  the  old  place  in 
England,  when  he  figured  his  mother  as  a  good  elderly 
lady,  who  would  necessarily  be  delighted  with  the  posses- 
sion on  any  terms  of  a  healthy  grandchild,  and  would  not 
mind  much  about  the  particulars  of  a  long-concealed 
marriage. 

Mrs.  Transom e  had  torn  up  that  letter  in  a  rage.  But 
in  the  months  which  had  elapsed  before  Harold  could 
actually  arrive,  she  had  prepared  herself  as  well  as  she 
could  to  suppress  all  reproaches  or  queries  which  her  son 
might  resent,  and  to  acquiesce  in  his  evident  wishes.  The 
return  was  still  looked  for  with  longing;  affection  and 
satisfied  pride  Avould  again  warm  her  later  years.  She 
was  ignorant  what  sort  of  man  Harold  had  become  now, 
and  of  course  he  must  be  changed  in  many  ways;  but 
though  she  told  herself  this,  still  the  image  that  she  knew, 
the  image  fondness  clung  to,  necessarily  prevailed  over 
the  negatives  insisted  on  by  her  reason. 

And  so  it  was,  that  when  she  had  moved  to  the  door  to 
meet  him,  she  had  been  sure  that  she  should  clasp  her  son 


THE   RADICAL.  25 

again,  and  feel  that  lie  was  the  same  who  had  been  her 
boy,  her  little  one,  the  loved  child  of  her  passionate  youth. 
An  hour  seemed  to  have  changed  everything  for  her.  A 
woman's  hopes  are  woven  of  sunbeams;  a  shadow  annihi- 
lates them.  The  shadow  which  had  fallen  over  Mrs.  Tran- 
some  in  this  first  interview  with  her  son  was  the  presenti- 
ment of  her  powerlessness.  If  things  went  wrong,  if 
Harold  got  unpleasantly  disposed  in  a  certain  direction 
where  her  chief  dread  had  always  lain,  she  seemed  to  fore- 
see that  her  words  would  be  of  no  avail.  The  keenness  of 
her  anxiety  in  this  matter  had  served  as  insight;  and 
Harold's  rapidity,  decision,  and  indifference  to  any  impres- 
sions in  others,  which  did  not  further  or  impede  his  own 
purposes,  had  made  themselves  felt  by  her  as  much  as  she 
would  have  felt  the  unmanageable  strength  of  a  great  bird 
which  had  alighted  near  her,  and  allowed  her  to  stroke  its 
wing  for  a  moment  because  food  lay  near  her. 

Under  the  cold  weight  of  these  thoughts  Mrs.  Transonic 
shivered.  That  physical  reaction  roused  her  from  her 
reverie,  and  she  could  now  hear  the  gentle  knocking  at 
the  door  to  which  she  had  been  deaf  before.  Notwith- 
standing her  activity  and  the  fewness  of  her  servants,  she 
had  never  dressed  herself  without  aid;  nor  would  that 
small,  neat,  exquisitely  clean  old  woman  who  now  pre- 
sented herself  have  v/ished  that  her  labor  should  be  saved 
at  the  expense  of  such  a  sacrifice  on  her  lady's  part.  The 
small  old  woman  was  Mrs.  Hickes,  the  butler's  wife,  who 
acted  as  housekeeper,  lady's-maid,  and  superintendent  of 
the  kitchen — the  large  stonv  scene  of  inconsiderable  cook- 
ing.  Forty  years  ago  she  had  entered  Mrs.  Transome's 
service,  when  that  lady  was  beautiful  Miss  Lingon,  and 
her  mistress  still  called  her  Denner,  as  she  had  done  in  the 
old  days. 

"  The  bell  has  rung,  then,  Denner,  without  my  hearing 
it?"  said  Mrs.  Transome,  rising. 

"  Yes,  madam,"  said  Denner,  reaching  from  a  wardrobe 
an  old  black  velvet  drees  trimmed  with  much-mended 
point,  in  which  Mrs.  Transome  was  wont  to  look  queenly 
of  an  evening. 

Denner  had  still  strong  eyes  of  that  short-sighted  kind 
which  sees  through  the  narrowest  chink  between  the  eye- 
lashes. The  physical  contrast  between  the  tall,  eagle-faced, 
dark-eyed  lady,  and  the  little  peering  waiting  woman,  who 
had  been  round-featured  and  of  pale  mealy  complexion 
from  her  youth  up,  had  doubtless  hat^  a  strong  influence 


■IG  FELIX    HOLT, 

in  determining  Denner's  feeling  toward  lier  mistress,  which 
was  of  that  worshipful  sort  paid  to  a  goddess  in  ages  when 
It  was  not  thought  necessary  or  likel}^  that  a  goddess  should 
be  very  moral.  There  were  different  orders  of  beings — so 
ran  Denner's  creed  —  and  she  belonged  to  another  order 
than  tliat  to  which  lier  mistress  belonged.  She  had  a 
mind  as  sliarp  as  a  needle,  and  would  have  seen  through 
and  through  the  ridiculous  pretensions  of  a  born  servant 
who  did  not  submissively  accept  the  rigid  fate  which  had 
given  her  born  superiors.  She  would  have  called  such  pre- 
tensions the  wrigglings  of  a  worm  that  tried  to  walk  on  its 
tail.  There  was  a  tacit  understanding  that  Denner  knew 
all  her  mistress's  secrets,  and  her  speech  was  plain  and 
unflattering;  yet  with  wonderful  subtlety  of  instinct  she 
never  said  anything  which  Mrs,  Transome  could  feel  humil- 
iated by,  as  by  familiarity  from  a  servant  who  knew  too 
much.  '  Denner  identified  her  own  dignity  with  that  of 
her  mistress.  She  was  a  hard-headed  godless  little  woman, 
but  wath  a  character  to  be  reckoned  on  as  you  reckon  on 
the  qualities  of  iron. 

Peering  into  Mrs.  Transome's  face  she  saw  clearly  that 
the  meeting  with  the  son  had  been  a  disappointment  in 
some  way.  She  spoke  with  a  refined  accent,  in  a  low, 
quick,  monotonous  tone — 

"Mr.  Harold  is  dressed;  he  shook  me  by  the  hand  in 
the  corridor,  and  was  very  pleasant." 

''  What  an  alteration,  Denner!    No  likeness  to  me  now." 

"Handsome,  though,  spite  of  his  being  so  browned  and 
stout.  There's  a  fine  presence  about  Mr.  Harold.  I 
remember  you  used  to  say,  madam,  there  were  some  people 
you  would  always  know  were  in  the  room  though  they 
stood  round  a  corner,  and  others  you  might  never  see  till 
you  ran  against  them.  That's  as  true  as  truth.  And  as 
for  likenesses,  thirty-five  and  sixty  are  not  much  alike, 
only  to  people's  memories." 

Mrs.  Transome  knew  perfectly  that  Denner  had  divined 
her  thoughts. 

"I  don't  know  how  things  will  go  on  now,  but  it  seems 
something  too  good  to  happen  that  they  will  go  on  well.  I 
am  afraid  of  ever  expecting  anything  good  again." 

"That's  weakness,  madam.  Things  don't  happen 
because  they're  bad  or  good,  else  all  eggs  would  be  addled 
or  none  at  all,  and  at  the  most  it  is  but  six  to  the  dozen. 
There's  good  chances  and  bad  chances,  and  nobody's  luck 
is  pulled  only  l)y  one  string." 


THE   RADICAL.  27 


<c 


What  a  woman  you  are,  Denner!  You  talk  like  a 
French  infidel.  It  seems  to  me  you  are  afraid  of  nothing. 
I  have  been  full  of  fears  all  my  life  —  always  seeing  some- 
thing or  other  hanging  over  me  that  I  couldn't  bear  to 
happen, " 

"  Well,  madam,  put  a  good  face  on  it,  and  don't  seem 
to  be  on  the  look-out  for  crows,  else  you'll  set  other  people 
watching.  Here  you  have  a  rich  son  come  home,  and  the 
debts  will  all  be  paid,  and  you  have  your  health  and  can 
ride  about,  and  you've  such  a  face  and  figure,  and  will 
have  if  you  live  to  be  eighty,  that  everybody  is  cap  in  hand 
to  you  before  they  know  who  you  are  —  let  me  fasten  up 
vour  veil  a  little  higher:  there's  a  good  deal  of  pleasure  in 
life  for  you  yet." 

''Nonsense!  there's  no  pleasure  for  old  women,  unless 
they  get  it  out  of  tormenting  other  people.  What  are 
your  pleasures,  Denner  —  besides  being  a  slave  to  me?" 

"  Oh,  there's  pleasure  in  knowing  one's  not  a  fool,  like 
half  the  people  one  sees  about.  And  managing  one's  hus- 
band is  some  pleasure;  and  doing  all  one's  business  well. 
Why,  if  I've  only  got  some  orange  flowers  to  candy,  I 
shouldn't  like  to  die  till  I  see  them  all  right.  Then  there's 
the  sunshine  now  and  then;  I  like  that  as  the  cats  do.  I 
look  upon  it,  life  is  like  our  game  at  whist,  when  Banks 
and  his  wife  come  to  the  still-room  of  an  evening.  I  don't 
enjoy  the  game  much,  but  I  like  to  play  my  cards  well, 
and  see  what  will  be  the  end  of  it;  and  I  want  to  see  you 
make  the  best  of  your  hand,  madam,  for  your  luck  has 
been  mine  these  forty  years  now.  But  I  must  go  and  see 
how  Kitty  dishes  up  the  dinner,  unless  you  have  any  more 
commands." 

"No,  Denner;  I  am  going  down  immediately." 

As  Mrs.  Transome  descended  the  stone  staircase  in  her 
old  black  velvet  and  point,  her  appearance  justified  Den- 
ner's  personal  compliment.  She  had  that  high-born, 
imperious  air  which  would  ha.ve  marked  her  as  an  object 
of  hatred  and  reviling  by  a  revolutionary  mob.  Her  person 
was  too  typical  of  social  distinctions  to  be  passed  by  with 
indifference  by  any  one:  it  would  have  fitted  an  em})ress  in 
her  own  right,  wlio  had  had  to  rule  in  spite  of  faction,  to 
dare  the  violation  of  treaties  and  dread  retributive  inva- 
sions, to  grasp  after  new  territories,  to  be  defiant  in 
desperate  circumstances,  and  to  feel  a  woman's  hunger  of 
the  heart  forever  unsatisfied.  Yet  Mrs.  Transome's  cares 
and  occupations  had  not  been  at  all  of  an  imperial  sort. 


28  FELIX   HOLT, 

For  thirty  years  she  had  led  the  monotonous,  narrowing 
life  which  used  to  be  the  lot  of  our  poorer  gentry;  who 
never  went  to  town,  and  were  probably  not  on  speaking 
terms  with  two  out  of  the  five  families  whose  parks  lay 
within  the  distance  of  a  drive.  When  she  was  young  she 
had  been  thought  wonderfully  clever  and  accomplished, 
and  had  been  rather  ambitious  of  intellectual  superiority — 
had  secretly  picked  out  for  private  reading  the  lighter 
parts  of  dangerous  French  authors  —  and  in  company  liad 
been  able  to  talk  of  Mr.  Burke's  style,  or  of  Chateau- 
briand's eloquence — had  laughed  at  the  Lyrical  Ballads, 
and  admired  Mr.  Southey's  Thalaba.  She  always  thought 
that  the  dangerous  French  writers  were  wicked  and 
that  her  reading  of  them  Avas  a  sin;  but  many  sinful 
things  were  highly  agreeable  to  her,  and  many  things 
which  she  did  not  doubt  to  be  good  and  true  were  dull 
and  meaningless.  She  found  ridicule  of  Biblical  char- 
acters very  amusing,  and  she  was  interested  in  stories  of 
illicit  passion;  but  she  believed  all  the  while  that  truth 
and  safety  lay  in  due  attendance  on  prayers  and  sermons, 
in  the  admirable  doctrines  and  ritual  of  the  Church 
of  England,  equally  remote  from  Puritanism  and  Popery; 
in  fact,  in  such-  a  view  of  this  world  and  the  next  as  would 
preserve  the  existing  arrangements  of  English  society 
quite  unshaken,  keeping  down  the  obtrusiveness  of  the 
vulgar  and  the  discontent  of  the  poor.  The  history  of  the 
Jews,  she  knew,  ought  to  be  jDreferred  to  any  profane  his- 
tory; the  Pagans,  of  course,  were  vicious,  and  their 
religions  quite  nonsensical,  considered  as  religions — but 
classical  learning  came  from  the  Pagans;  the  Greeks  were 
famous  for  sculpture;  the  Italians  for  painting;  the  mid- 
dle ages  were  dark  and  Papistical;  but  now  Christianity 
went  hand  in  hand  with  civilization,  and  the  providential 
government  of  the  world,  tliough  a  little  confused  and 
entangled  in  foreign  countries,  in  our  favored  land  was 
clearly  seen  to  be  carried  forward  on  Tory  and  Church  of 
England  princi2:)les,  sustained  by  the  succession  of  the 
House  of  Brunswick,  and  by  sound  English  divines.  For 
Miss  Lingon  had  had  a  superior  governess,  who  held  that 
a  woman  should  be  able  to  write  a  good  letter,  and  to 
express  herself  with  propriety  on  general  subjects.  And  it 
is  astonishing  how  effective  this  education  appeared  in 
a  handsome  girl,  who  sat  supremely  well  on  horseback, 
sang  and  played  a  little,  painted  small  figures  in  wnter- 
colors,  had  a  naughty  sparkle  in  her  eyes  when  she  made  a 


THE   RADICAL.  29 

daring  quotation,  and  an  air  of  serious  dignity  when  she 
recited  something  fEom  her  store  of  correct  opinions.  But 
however  such  a  stock  of  ideas  may  be  made  to  tell  in 
elegant  society,  and  during  a  few  seasons  in  town,  no 
amount  of  bloom  and  beauty  can  make  them  a  perennial 
source  of  interest  in  things  not  personal;  and  the  notion 
that  what  is  true  and,  in  general,  good  for  mankind,  is 
stupid  and  drug-like,  is  not  a  safe  theoretic  basis  in 
circumstances  of  temptation  and  difficulty.  Mrs.  Tran- 
some  had  been  in  her  bloom  before  this  century  began, 
and  in  the  long  painful  years  since  then,  what  she  had 
once  regarded  as  her  knowledge  and  accomplishments  had 
become  as  valueless  as  old-fashioned  stucco  ornaments,  of 
which  the  substance  was  never  worth  anything,  Avhile 
the  form  is  no  longer  to  the  taste  of  any  living  mortal. 
Crosses,  mortifications,  money-cares,  conscious  blame- 
worthiness, had  changed  the  aspect  of  the  world  for  her; 
there  was  anxiety  in  the  morning  sunlight;  there  was 
unkind  triumph  or  disapproving  pity  in  the  glances  of 
greeting  neighbors;  there  was  advancing  age,  and  a  con- 
tracting prospect  in  the  changing  seasons  as  they  came 
and  went.  And  what  could  then  sweeten  the  days  to 
a  hungry,  much-exacting  self  like  Mrs.  Transome's? 
Under  protracted  ill  every  living  creature  will  find 
something  that  makes  a  comparative  ease,  and  even 
when  life  seems  woven  of  pain,  will  convert  the  fainter 
pang  into  a  desire.  Mrs.  Transome,  whose  imperious 
will  had  availed  little  to  ward  off  the  great  evils  of 
her  life,  found  the  opiate  for  her  discontent  in  the  exertion 
of  her  will  about  smaller  things.  She  was  not  cruel,  and 
could  not  enjoy  thoroughly  what  she  called  the  old 
woman's  pleasure  of  tormenting;  but  she  liked  every  little 
sign  of  power  her  lot  had  left  her.  She  liked  that  a 
tenant  should  stand  bareheaded  below  her  as  she  sat  on 
horseback.  She  liked  to  insist  that  work  done  without 
her  orders  should  be  undone  from  beginning  to  end.  She 
liked  to  be  curtsied  and  bowed  to  by  all  the  congregation 
as  she  walked  up  the  little  barn  of  a  church.  She  liked 
to  change  a  laborer's  medicine  fetched  from  the  doctor, 
and  substitute  a  prescription  of  lier  own.  If  she  had  only 
been  more  haggard  and  less  majestic,  those  who  had 
glimpses  of  her  outward  life  might  have  said  she  was  a 
tyrannical,  griping  harridan,  with  a  tongue  like  a  razor. 
No  one  said  exactly  that;  but  they  never  said  anything  like 
the  full  truth  about  her,  or  divined  what  was  hidden  under 


30  TLLIX    HOLT, 

that  outward  life  —  a  woman's  keen  sensibility  and  dread, 
which  lay  screened  behind  all  her  petty  habits  and  narrow 
notions,  as  some  quivering  thing  with  eyes  and  throbbing 
heart  may  lie  crouching  behind  withered  rubbish.  The 
sensibility  and  dread  had  palpitated  all  the  faster  in  the 
prospect  of  her  son's  return;  and  now  that  she  had  seen 
him,  she  said  to  herself,  in  her  bitter  way,  "It  is  a  lucky 
eel  that  escapes  skinning.  The  best  happiness  I  shall  ever 
know,  will  be  to  escape  the  worst  misery." 


CHAPTER  II. 

A  jolly  parson  of  the  good  old  stock. 

By  birth  a  gentleman,  yet  homely  too, 

Suiting  his  phrase  to  Hodge  and  Margery 

Whom  he  once  christened,  and  has  married  since, 

A  little  lax  in  doctrine  and  in  lite. 

Not  thinking  God  was  captious  in  such  things 

As  what  a  man  might  drink  on  holidays. 

But  holding  true  i-eligiou  was  to  do 

As  you'd  be  done  by  —  which  could  never  mean 

That  he  should  preach  three  sermons  in  a  week. 

Harold  Transome  did  not  choose  to  spend  the  whole 
evening  with  his  mother.  It  was  his  habit  to  compress  a 
great  deal  of  effective  conversation  into  a  short  space  of 
time,  asking  rapidly  all  the  questions  he  wanted  to  get 
answered,  and  diluting  no  subject  with  irrelevancies,  para- 
phrase, or  repetitions.  He  volunteered  no  information 
about  himself  and  his  past  life  at  Smyrna,  but  answered 
pleasantly  enough,  though  briefly,  whenever  his  mother 
asked  for  any  detail.  He  was  evidently  ill-satisfied  as  to 
his  palate,  trying  red  pepper  to  everything,  then  asking 
if  there  were  any  relishing  sauces  in  the  house,  and  when 
Hickes  brought  various  home-filled  bottles,  trying  several, 
finding  them  failures,  and  finally  falling  back  from  his 
plate  in  despair.  Yet  he  remained  good-humored,  say- 
ing something  to  his  father  now  and  then  for  the  sake 
of  being  kind,  and  looking  on  with  a  pitying  shrug  as  he 
saw  him  watch  Hickes  cutting  his  food.  Mrs.  Transonic 
thoaght  with  some  bitterness  that  Harold  showed  more 
feeling  for  her  feeble  husband  who  had  never  cared  in  the 
least  about  him,  than  for  her,  who  had  given  him  more 
than  the  usual  share  of  mother's  love.  An  hour  after  din- 
ner, Harold,  who  had  already  been  turning  over  the  leaves 
of  his  mother's  account-books,  said — 


THE   RADICAL.  31 

"  I  shall  just  cross  the  park  to  the  parsonage  to  see  my 
uncle  Lingon." 

"Very  well.    He  cau  answer  more  questions  for  you." 

"Yes,"  said  Harold,  quite  deaf  to  the  innuendo,  and 
accepting  the  words  as  a  simple  statement  of  the  fact.  "  I 
want  to  hear  all  about  the  game  and  the  North  Loamshire 
hunt.  I'm  fond  of  sport;  Ave  had  a  great  deal  of  it  at 
Smyrna,  and  it  keeps  down  my  fat." 

The  Eeverend  John  Lingon  became  very  talkative  over 
his  second  bottle  of  port,  which  was  opened  on  his 
nephew's  arrival.  He  was  not  curious  about  the  manners 
of  Smyrna,  or  about  Harold's  exjierience,  but  he  unbo- 
somed himself  very  freely  as  to  Avhat  he  himself  liked  and 
disliked,  which  of  the  farmers  he  suspected  of  killing  the 
foxes,  Avhat  game  he  had  bagged  that  very  morning,  what 
spot  he  would  recommend  as  a  new  cover,  and  the  com- 
parative flatness  of  all  existing  sport  compared  with  cock- 
fighting,  under  which  Old  England  had  been  prosperous 
and  glorious,  while,  so  far  as  he  could  see,  it  had  gained 
little  by  the  abolition  of  a  practice  which  sharpened  the 
faculties  of  men,  gratified  the  instincts  of  the  fowl,  and 
carried  out  the  designs  of  heaven  in  its  admirable  device 
of  spurs.  From  these  main  topics,  which  made  his  points 
of  departure  and  return,  he  rambled  easily  enough  at  any 
new  suggestion  or  query;  so  that  when  Harold  got  home 
at  a  late  hour,  he  was  conscious  of  having  gathered  from 
amidst  the  pompous  full-toned  triviality  of  his  uncle's 
chat  some  impressions  which  were  of  practical  importance. 
Among  the  rector's  dislikes,  it  appeared,  was  Mr.  Matthew 
Jermyn. 

"A  fat-handed,  glib-tongued  fellow,  with  a  scented 
cambric  handkerchief;  one  of  your  educated  low-bred 
fellows;  a  foundling  who  got  his  Latin  for  nothing  at 
Christ's  Hospital;  one  of  your  middle-class  upstarts  who 
want  to  rank  with  gentlemen,  and  think  they'll  do  it  with 
kid  gloves  and  new  furniture." 

But  since  Harold  meant  to  stand  for  the  county,  Mr. 
Lingon  was  equally  emphatic  as  to  tlie  necessity  of  his  not 
quarreling  with  Jermyn  till  the  election  was  over.  Jer- 
myn must  be  his  agent;  Harold  must  wink  hard  till  he  found 
himself  safely  returned;  and  even  then  it  might  be  well  to 
let  Jermyn  drop  gently  and  raise  no  scandal.  He  himself 
had  no  quarrel  with  the  fellow:  a  clergyman  should  have 
no  quarrels,  and  he  made  it  a  point  to  be  able  to  take 
wine  with  any  man  he  met  at  table.     And  as  to  the  estate, 


32  FELIX    HOLT, 

and  his  sister's  going  too  much  by  Jermyn's  advice,  he 
never  meddled  with  business:  it  was  not  his  duty  as  a  clergy- 
man. That,  he  considered  was  the  meaning  of  Melchise- 
dec  and  the  tithe,  a  subject  into  which  he  had  gone  to  some 
depth  thirty  years  ago,  when  he  preached  the  Visitation 
sermon. 

The  discovery  that  Harold  meant  to  stand  on  the  Lib- 
eral side — nay,  that  he  boldly  declared  himself  a  Eadical — 
was  rather  startling;  but  to  his  uncle's  good-humor,  beati- 
fied by  the  sipping  of  port-wine,  nothing  could  seem  highly 
objectionable,  provided  it  did  not'  disturb  that  operation. 
In  the  course  of  half  an  hour  he  had  brought  himself  to 
see  that  anything  really  worthy  to  be  called  British  Tory- 
ism had  been  entirely  extinct  since  the  Duke  of  Wellington 
and  Sir  Robert  Peel  had  passed  the  Catholic  Emancipation 
Bill;  that  Whiggery,  with  its  rights  of  man  stopping  short 
at  ten-pound  householders,  and  its  policy  of  laacifying  a 
wild  beast  with  a  bite,  was  a  ridiculous  monstrosity;  that 
therefore,  since  an  honest  man  could  not  call  himself  a 
Tory,  which  it  was,  in  fact,  as  impossible  to  be  now  as  to 
fight  for  the  old  Pretender,  and  could  still  less  become 
that  execrable  monstrosity  a  Whig,  there  remained  but  one 
course  open  to  him.  "  Why,  lad,  if  the  world  was  turned 
into  a  swamp,  I  suppose  we  should  leave  off  shoes  and 
stockings,  and  walk  about  like  cranes" — whence  it  followed 
plainly  enough  that,  in  these  hopeless  times,  nothing  was 
left  to  men  of  sense  and  good  family  but  to  retard  the 
national  ruin  by  declaring  themselves  Radicals,  and  take 
the  inevitable  process  of  changing  everything  out  of  the 
hands  of  beggarly  demagogues  and  purse-proud  trades- 
men. It  is  true  the  rector  was  helped  to  this  chain  of 
reasoning  by  Harold's  remarks;  but  he  soon  became  quite 
ardent  in  asserting  the  conclusion. 

''If  the  mob  can't  be  turned  back,  a  man  of  family 
must  try  and  head  the  mob,  and  save  a  few  homes  and 
hearths,  and  keep  the  country  up  on  its  last  legs  as  long  as 
he  can.  And  you're  a  man  of  family,  my  lad — dash  it! 
You're  a  Lingon,  whatever  else  you  may  be,  and  I'll  stand 
by  you.  I've  no  great  interest;  I'm  a  poor  parson.  I've 
been  forced  to  give  up  hunting;  my  pointers  and  a  glass  of 
good  wine  are  the  only  decencies  becoming  my  station  that 
I  can  allow  myself.  But  I'll  give  you  my  countenance — 
I'll  stick  to  you  as  my  nephew.  There's  no  need  for  me  to 
change  sides  exactly.  I  was  born  a  Tory,  and  I  shall  never 
be  a  bishop.     But  if  anybody  says  you're  in  the  wrong,  I 


THE    KADICAL.  33 

shall  say,  'My  nephew  is  in  the  right;  he  has  turned  Radi- 
cal to  save  his  country.  If  William  Pitt  had  been  living 
now,  he'd  have  done  the  same;  for  what  did  he  say  Av^hen 
he  was  dying?  Not  ^0  save  my  party!'  but  '0  save  my 
country,  heaven!'  That  was  what  they  dinned  in  our 
ears  about  Peel  and  the  Duke;  and  now  I'll  turn  it  round 
upon  them.  They  shall  be  hoist  with  their  own  petard. 
Yes,  yes,  I'll  stand  by  you." 

Harold  did  not  feel  sure  that  his  uncle  would  thoroughly 
retain  this  satisfactory  thread  of  argument  in  the  unin- 
spired hours  of  the  morning;  but  the  old  gentleman  was 
sure  to  take  the  facts  easily  in  the  end,  and  there  was  no 
fear  of  family  coolness  or  quarreling  on  this  side,  Harold 
was  glad  of  it.  He  was  not  to  be  turned  aside  from  any 
course  he  had  chosen;  but  he  disliked  all  quarreling  as  an 
unpleasant  expenditure  of  energy  that  could  have  no  good 
practical  result.  He  was  at  once  active  and  luxurious; 
fond  of  mastery,  and  good-natured  enough  to  wish  that 
every  one  about  him  should  like  his  mastery;  not  caring 
greatly  to  know  other  people's  thoughts,  and  ready  to 
despise  them  as  blockheads  if  their  thoughts  differed  from 
his,  and  yet  solicitous  that  they  should  have  no  colorable 
reason  for  slight  thoughts  about  liim.  The  blockheads 
must  be  forced  to  respect  him.  Hence,  in  proportion  as 
hd"  foresaw  his  equals  in  the  neighborhood  would  be  indig- 
nant with  him  for  his  political  choice,  he  cared  keenly 
about  making  a  good  figure  before  them  in  every  other 
way.  His  conduct  as  a  landholder  was  to  be  judicious,  his 
establishment  was  to  be  kept  up  generously,  his  imbecile 
father  treated  with  careful  regard,  his  family  relations 
entirely  without  scandal.  He  knew  that  affairs  had  been 
unpleasant  in  his  youth — that  there  had  been  ugly  law- 
suits— and  that  his  scapegrace  brother  Durfey  had  helped 
to  lower  still  farther  the  depressed  condition  of  the  family. 
All  this  must  be  retrieved,  now  that  events  had  made  Har- 
old the  head  of  tlie  Transome  name. 

Jermyn  must  be  used  for  the  election,  and  after  that,  if 
lie  must  be  got  rid  of,  it  would  be  well  to  shake  him  loose 
quietly:  his  uncle  was  probably  riglit  on  both  these  points. 
But  Harold's  expectation  that  he  should  want  to  get  rid  of 
Jermyn  was  founded  on  other  reasons  than  his  scented 
handkerchief  and  his  charity-school  Latin. 

If  the  lawyer  had  been  presuming  on  Mrs.  Transome's 
ignorance  as  a  womar ,  and  on  the  stupid  rakishness  of  the 
original  heir,  the  new  heir  would  prove  to  him  that  he  had 
3 


34  FELIX   HOLT, 

calculated  rashly.  Otherwise,  Harold  had  no  prejudice 
against  him.  In  his  boyhood  and  youth  he  had  seen  Jer- 
myn  frequenting  Transome  Court,  but  had  regarded  him 
wi'th  that  total  indifference  with  which  youngsters  are  apt 
to  view  those  who  neither  deny  them  pleasure  nor  give 
them  any.  Jermyn  used  to  smile  at  him,  and  speak  to  him 
affably;  but  Harold,  half  proud,  half  shy,  got  away  from 
such  patronage  as  soon  as  possible:  he  knew  Jermyn  was  a 
man  of  business;  his  father,  his  uncle,  and  Sir  Maximus 
Debarry  did  not  regard  him  as  a  gentleman  and  their 
equal.  He  had  known  no  evil  of  the  man;  but  he  saw 
now  that  if  he  were  really  a  covetous  upstart,  there  had 
been  a  temptation  for  him  in  the  management  of  the  Tran- 
some affairs;  and  it  was  clear  that  the  estate  was  in  a  bad 
condition. 

When  Mr.  Jermyn  was  ushered  into  the  breakfast-room 
the  next  morning,  Harold  found  him  surprisingly  little 
altered  by  the  fifteen  years.  He  was  gray,  but  still 
remarkably  handsome;  fat,  but  tall  enough  to  bear  that 
trial  to  man's  dignity.  There  was  as  strong  a  ^iggestion 
of  toilette  about  him  as  if  he  had  been  five-and-twenty 
instead  of  nearly  sixty.  He  chose  always  to  dress  in  black, 
and  Avas  especially  addicted  to  black  satin  waistcoats, 
which  carried  out  the  general  sleekness  of  his  appearance; 
and  this,  together  with  his  white,  fat,  but  beautifully- 
shaped  hands,  which  he  was  in  the  habit  of  rubbing 
gently  on  his  entrance  into  a  room,  gave  him  very  much 
the  air  of  a  lady's  physician.  Harold  remembered  with 
some  amusement  his  uncle's  dislike  of  those  conspicuous 
hands;  but  as  his  own  were  soft  and  dimpled,  and  as  he 
too  was  given  to  the  innocent  practice  of  rubbing  those 
members,  his  suspicions  were  not  yet  deepened. 

"I  congratulate  you,  Mrs.  Transome,"  said  Jermyn, 
with  a  soft  and  deferential  smile,  "all  the  more,"  he 
added,  turning  toward  Harold,  "now  I  have  the  pleasure 
of  actually  seeing  your  son.  I  am  glad  to  perceive  that 
an  Eastern  climate  has  not  been  unfavorable  to  him." 

"No,"  said  Harold,  shaking  Jermyn's  hand  carelessly,' 
and  speaking  with  more  than  his  usual  rapid  brusqueness, 
"the  question  is,  whether  the  English  climate  will  agree 
with  me.  It's  deuced  shifting  and  damp;  and  as  for  the 
food,  it  would  be  the  finest  thing  in  the  world  for  this 
country  if  the  southern  cooks  would  change  their  religion, 
get  persecuted,  and  fly  to  England,  as  the  old  silk- 
weavers  did." 


THE    RADICAL.  35 

*' There  are  plenty  of  foreign  cooks  for  those  who  are 
rich  enough  to  pay  for  them,  I  suppose/'  said  Mrs.  Tran- 
sonic, "but  they  are  unpleasant  people  to  have  about  one's 
house." 

"Gad!  I  don't  think  so,"  said  Harold. 

"The  old  servants  are  sure  to  quarrel  with  them." 

"That's  no  concern  of  mine.  The  old  servants  will 
have  to  put-up  with  my  man  Dominic,  who  will  show 
them  how  to  cook  and  do  everything  else,  in  a  way  tiuit 
will  rather  astonish  them." 

"Old  people  are  not  so  easily  taught  to  change  all  their 
ways,  Harold." 

"Well,  they  can  give  up  and  watch  the  young  ones," 
said  Harold,  'thinkmg  only  at  that  moment  of  ol-d  Mrs. 
Hickes  and  Dominic.  But  his  mother  was  not  thinking 
of  them  only. 

"You  have  a  valuable  servant,  it  seems,"  said  Jermyn, 
who  understood  Mrs.  Transonic  better  than  her  son  did, 
and  wished  to  smoothen  the  current  of  their  dialogue. 

"  Oh,  one  of  those  wonderful  southern  fellows  that  make 
one's  life  easy.  He's  of  no  country  in  particular.  I  don't 
know  whether  he's  most  of  a  Jew,  a  Greek,  an  Italian,  or 
a  Spaniard.  He  speaks  five  or  six  languages,  one  as  well 
as  another.  He's  cook,  valet,  major-domo,  and  secretary 
all  in  one;  and  what's  more,  he's  an  affectionate  fellow  — 
I  can  trust  to  his  attachment.  That's  a  sort  of  human 
specimen  that  doesn't  grow  here  in  England,  I  fancy. 
1  should  have  been  badly  off  if  I  could  not  have  brought 
Dominic." 

They  sat  down  to  breakfast  with  such  slight  talk  as  this 
going  on.  Each  of  the  party  was  preoccupied  and  un- 
easy. Harold's  mind  was  busy  constructing  probabilities 
about  what  he  should  discover  of  Jermyn's  mismanage- 
ment or  dubious  application  of  funds,  and  the  sort  of  self- 
command  he  must  in  the  worst  case  exercise  in  order  to  use 
the  man  as  long  as  he  wanted  him.  Jermvn  was  closelv 
ol)serving  Harold  with  an  unpleasant  sense  that  there  was 
an  expression  of  acuteness  and  determination  about  him 
which  would  make  him  formidable.  He  would  certainly 
have  preferred  at  that  moment  that  there  had  been  no 
second  heir  of  the  Transonic  name  to  come  back  upon  him 
from  the  East.  Mrs.  Transonic  was  not  observing  the  two 
men;  rather,  her  hands  were  cold,  and  her  whole  person 
shaken  by  their  presence;  she  seemed  to  hear  and  see  what 
they  said  and  did  with  jjreternatural  acuteness,  and  yet 


36  fELIX  HOLT, 

she  was  also  seeing  and  hearing  what  had  been  said 
and  done  many  years  before,  and  feeling  a  dim  terror  about 
the  future.  There  were  piteous  sensibilities  in  this  faded 
woman,  who  thirty-four  years  ago,  in  the  splendor  of  her 
bloom,  had  been  imperious  to  one  of  these  men,  and  had 
rapturously  pressed  the  other  as  an  infant  to  her  bosom, 
and  now  knew  that  she  was  of  little  consequence  to  either 
of  them. 

"  Well,  what  are  the  prospects  about  the  election?"  said 
Harold,  as  the  breakfast  was  advancing.  "  There  are  two 
Whigs  and  one  Conservative  likely  to  be  in  the  field,  I 
know.     What  is  your  opinion  of  the  chances?" 

Mr.  Jermyn  had  a  copious  supply  of  Avords,  which  often 
led  him  into  periphrase,  but  he  cultivated  a  hesitating 
stammer,  which,  with  a  handsome  impassiveness  of  face, 
except  when  he  was  smiling  at  a  woman,  or  Avhen  the 
latent  savageness  of  his  nature  was  thoroughly  roused,  he 
had  found  useful  in  many  relations,  especially  in  business. 
No  one  could  have  found  out  that  he  was  not  at  his  ease. 
"My  opinion,"  he  replied,  ''is  in  a  state  of  balance  at 
present.  This  division  of  the  country,  you  are  aware, 
contains  one  manufacturing  town  of  the  first  magnitude, 
and  several  smaller  ones.  The  manufacturing  interest  is 
widely  dispersed.  So  far — a  —  there  is  a  presumption  — 
a  —  in  favor  of  the  two  Liberal  candidates.  Still,  with  a 
careful  canvass  of  the  agricultural  districts,  such  as  those 
we  have  round  us  at  Treby  Magna,  I  think  —  a  —  the 
auguries  —  a  —  would  not  be  unfavorable  to  the  return  of 
a  Conservative.  A  fourth  candidate  of  good  position,  who 
should  coalesce  with  Mr.  Debarry  —  a " 

Here  Mr.  Jermyn  hesitated  for  the  third  time,  and 
Harold  broke  in. 

"  That  will  not  be  my  line  of  action,  so  we  need  not 
discuss  it.  If  I  put  up,  it  will  be  as  a  Eadical;  aud  I 
fancy,  in  any  county  that  would  return  Whigs  there  would 
be  plenty  of  voters  to  be  combed  olf  by  a  Eadical  who 
offered  himself  with  good  pretensions." 

There  was  the  slightest  possible  quiver  discernible 
across  Jermyn's  face.  Otherwise  he  sat  as  he  had  done 
before,  with  his  eyes  fixed  abstractedly  on  the  frill  of  a  ham 
before  him,  and  his  hand  trifling  with  his  fork.  He  did 
not  answer  immediately,  but  when  he  did,  he  looked  round 
steadily  at  Harold. 

"  I'm  delighted  to  perceive  that  you  have  kept  yourself 
so  thoroughly  acquainted  with  English  politics." 


THE   RADICAL.  37 

"  Oh,  of  course/'  said  Harold,  impatiently.  "  I'm  aware 
how  things  have  been  going  on  in  England.  I  always 
meant  to  come  back  ultimately.  I  suppose  I  know  the 
state  of  Europe  as  well  as  if  I'd  been  stationary  at  Little 
Treby  for  the  last  fifteen  years.  If  a  man  goes  to  the  East, 
people  seem  to  think  he  gets  turned  into  something  like 
the  one-eyed  calender  in  the  'Arabian  XightsI'" 

"Yet  I  should  think  there  are  some  things  which 
people  who  have  been  stationary  at  Little  Treby  could 
tell  you,  Harold,"  said  Mrs,  Transome.  "It  did  not 
signify  about  your  holding  Eadical  opinions  at  Smyrna; 
but  you  seem  not  to  imagine  how  your  putting  up  as  a 
Radical  will  affect  your  position  here,  and  the  position  of 
your  family,  j^o  one  will  visit  you.  And  then — the  sort 
of  people  who  will  support  you!  You  really  have  no  idea 
what  an  impression  it  conveys  when  you  say  you  are  & 
Radical.  There  are  none  of  our  equals  who  will  not  feel 
that  you  have  disgraced  yourself." 

"  Pooh! "  said  Harold,  rising  and  walking  along  the  room. 

But  Mrs.  Transome  went  on  with  growing  anger  in  her 
voice — "it  seems  to  me  that  a  man  owes  something  to  his 
birth  and  station,  and  has  no  right  to  take  up  tliis  notion 
or  the  other,  just  as  it  suits  his  fancy;  still  less  to  Avork  at 
the  overthrow  of  his  class.  That  was  what  every  one  said 
of  Lord  Grey,  and  my  family  at  least  is  as  good  as  Lord 
Grey's.  You  have  Avealth  now,  and  might  distinguish 
yourself  in  the  county;  and  if  you  had  been  true  to  your 
colors  as  a  gentleman,  you  would  have  had  all  the  greater 
opportunity  because  the  times  are  so  bad.  The  Debarrys 
and  Lord  Wyvern  would  have  set  all  the  more  store  by 
you.  For  my  part,  I  can't  conceive  what  good  you  jn-o- 
))ose  to  yourself.  I  only  entreat  you- to  think  again  before 
you  take  any  decided  step." 

"  Mother,"  said  Harold,  not  angrily  or  with  any  raising 
of  his  voice,  but  in  a  quick,  impatient  manner,  as  if  the 
scene  must  be  got  through  as  quickly  as  possible;  "it  is 
natural  that  you  should  think  in  this  way.  Women,  very 
properly,  don't  change  their  views,  but  keep  to  the  notions 
in  which  they  have  been  brought  up.  It  doesn't  signify 
what  they  think — they  are  not  called  upon  to  judge  or  to 
act.  You  must  really  leave  me  to  take  my  own  course  in 
these  matters,  which  properly  belong  to  men.  Beyond 
that,  I  will  gratify  any  wish  you  may  choose  to  mention. 
You  shall  have  a  new  carriage  and  a  pair  of  bays  all  to 
yourself;  you  shall  have  the  house  done  up  in  first-rate 


38  FELIX  HOLTj, 

style,  and  I  am  not  thinking  of  marrying.  _  But  let  us 
understand  that  there  shall  be  no  further  collision  between 
us  on  subjects  on  which  I  must  be  master  of  my  own 
actions." 

"And  you  will  put  the  crown  to  the  mortifications  of 
my  life,  Harold.  I  don't  know  who  would  be  a  mother  if 
she  could  foresee  what  a  slight  thing  she  will  be  to  her 
son  when  she  is  old." 

Mrs.  Transome  here  walked  out  of  the  room  by  the 
nearest  way  —  the  glass  door  open  toward  the  terrace. 
Mr.  Jermyn  had  risen  too,  and  his  hands  were  on  the 
back  of  his  chair.  He  looked  quite  impassive:  it  was  not 
the  first  time  he  had  seen  Mrs.  Transome  angry;  but  now, 
for  the  first  time,  he  thought  the  outburst  of  her  temper 
would  be  useful  to  him.  She,  poor  woman,  knew  quite 
well  that  she  had  been  unwise,  and  that  she  had  been 
making  herself  disagreeable  to  Harold  to  no  purpose. 
But  half  the  sorrows  of  women  would  be  averted  if  they 
could  repress  the  speech  they  know  to  be  useless — nay,  the 
speech  they  have  resolved  not  to  utter.  Harold  continued 
his  walking  a  moment  longer,  and  then  said  to  Jermyn — 

"You  smoke?" 

"No,  I  always  defer  to  the  ladies.  Mrs.  Jermyn  is 
peculiarly  sensitive  in  such  matters,  and  doesn't  like 
tobacco." 

Harold,  who,  underneath  all  the  tendencies  which  had 
made  him  a  Liberal,  had  intense  jjersonal  pride,  thought, 
"Confound  the  fellow — with  his  Mrs.  Jermyn  I  Does  he 
think  Ave  are  on  a  footing  for  me  to  know  anything  about 
his  wife?" 

"Well,  I  took  my  hookah  before  breakfast,"  he  said 
aloud,  "so,  if  yon  like,  we'll  go  into  the  library.  My 
father  never  gets  up  till  midday,  I  find," 

"  Sit  down,  sit  down,"  said  Harold,  as  they  entered  the 
handsome,  spacious  library.  But  he  himself  continued  to 
stand  before  a  map  of  the  county  which  he  had  opened  from 
a  series  of  rollers  occupying  a  compartment  among  the. 
book-shelves.  "The  first  question,  Mr.  Jermyn,  now  you 
know  my  intentions,  is,  whether  you  will  undertake  to  be 
my  agent  in  this  election,  and  help  me  through?  There's 
no  time  to  be  lost,  and  I  don't  want  to  lose  my  chance,  as 
I  may  not  have  another  for  seven  years.  I  understand," 
he  went  on,  flashing  a  look  straight  at  Jermyn,  "that  you 
have  not  taken  any  conspicuous  course  in  politics^  and  I 
know  that  Labron  is  agent  for  the  Debarrys." 


THE    RADICAL.  39 

''  Oh — a — my  dear  sir — a  man  necessarily  has  his  polit- 
ical convictions,  but  of  what  use  is  it  for  a  professional 
man — a — of  some  education,  to  talk  of  them  in  a  littb 
country  town?  There  really  is  no  comprehension  of  pub- 
lic questions  in  such  places.  Party  feeling,  indeed,  was 
quite  asleep  here  before  the  agitation  about  the  Catholic 
Relief  Bill.  It  is  true  that  I  concurred  with  our  incum- 
bent in  getting  up  a  petition  against  the  Eeform  Bill,  but 
I  did  not  state  my  reasons.  The  weak  points  in  that  Bill 
are — a — too  palpable,  and  I  fancy  you  and  I  should  not 
differ  much  on  that  head.  The  fact  is,  when  I  knew  that 
you  were  to  come  back  to  us,  I  kept  myself  in  reserve; 
though  I  was  much  pressed  by  the  friends  of  Sir  James 
Clement,  the  Ministerial  candidate,  who  is " 

"However,  you  will  act  for  me — that's  settled?-"  said 
Harold. 

"  Certainly,"  said  Jermyn,  inwardly  irritated  by  Har- 
old's rapid  manner  of  cutting  him  short. 

""Which  of  the  Liberal  candidates,  as  they  call  them- 
selves, has  the  better  chance,  eh?" 

"■  I  was  going  to  observe  that  Sir  James  Clement  has  not 
so  good  a  chance  as  Mr.  Garstin,  supposing  that  a  third 
Liberal  candidate  presents  himself.  There  are  tAvo  senses 
in  which  a  politician  can  be  liberal'* — here  Mr.  Jermyn 
smiled — "  Sir  James  Clement  is  a  poor  baronet,  hoping  for 
an  appointment,  and  can't  be  expected  to  be  liberal  in 
that  wider  sense  which  commands  majorities." 

"  I  wish  this  man  were  not  so  much  of  a  talker,"  thought 
Harold,  "he'll  bore  me.  We  shall  see,"  he  said  aloud. 
"  what  can  be  done  in  the  way  of  combination.  I'll  come 
down  to  your  office  after  one  o'clock  if  it  will  suit  you?" 

"  Perfectly." 

"Ah,  and  you'll  have  all  the  lists  and  papers  and  neces- 
sary information  ready  for  me  there.  I  must  get  up  a 
dinner  for  the  tenants,  and  we  can  invite  whom  we  like 
besides  the  tenants.  Just  now,  I'm  going  over  one  of  the 
farms  on  hand  with  the  bailiff.  By  the  way,  that's  a  des- 
perately bad  business,  having  three  farms  unlet  —  how 
comes  that  about,  eh?" 

"That  is  precisely  what  I  Avanted  to  say  a  few  words 
about  to  you.  You  have  observed  already  hoAv  strongly 
Mrs.  Transome  takes  certain  things  to  heart.  You  can 
imagine  that  she  has  been  severely  tried  in  many  ways. 
Mr.  Transome's  want  of  health;  Mr.  Durfey's  habits — 
a "  ^ 


40  FELIX  HOLT, 

''Yes,  yes." 

*'She  is  a  woman  for  whom  I  naturally  entertain  the 
highest  respect,  and  she  has  had  hardly  any  gratification 
for  many  years,  except  the  sense  of  having  affairs  to  a 
certain  extent  in  her  own  hands.  She  objects  to  changes; 
she  will  not  have  a  new  style  of  tenants;  she  likes  the  old 
stock  of  farmers  who  milk  their  own  cows^  and  send  their 
younger  daughters  out  to  service:  all  this  makes  it  difficult 
to  do  the  best  with  the  estate.  I  am  aware  things  are  not 
as  they  ought  to  be,  for,  in  point  of  fact,  an  improved 
agricultural  management  is  a  matter  in  which  I  take  con- 
siderable interest,  and  the  farm  which  I  myself  hold  on 
the  estate  you  will  see,  I  think,  to  be  in  a  superior  condi- 
tion. But  Mrs.  Transonic  is  a  woman  of  strong  feeling, 
and  I  would  urge  you,  my  dear  sir,  to  make  the  changes 
which  you  have,  but  which  I  had  not  the  right  to  insist 
on,  as  little  painful  to  her  as  possible." 

'•'  I  shall  know  what  to  do,  sir,  never  fear,^'  said  Harold, 
much  offended. 

"You  will  pardon,  I  hope,  a  perhaps  undue  freedom  of 
suggestion  from  a  man  of  my  age,  who  has  been  so  long  in 
a  close  connection  with  the  family  affairs — a — I  have  never 
considered  that  connection  simply  in  a  light  of  business — 
a " 

"  Damn  him,  Fll  soon  let  him  know  that  /  do,"  thought 
Harold.  But  in  proportion  as  he  found  Jermyn^s  manners 
annoying,  he  felt  the  necessity  of  controlling  himself.  He 
despised  all  persons  who  defeated  their  own  projects  by  the 
indulgeiice  of  momentary  impulses. 

"I  understand,  I  understand,"  he  said  aloud.  ''You've 
had  more  awkward  business  on  your  hands  than  usually 
falls  to  the  share  of  a  family  lawyer.  We  shall  set  every- 
thing right  by  degrees.  But  now  as  to  the  canvassing. 
Fve  made  arrangements  with  a  first-rate  man  in  London, 
who  understands  these  matters  thoroughly — a  solicitor,  of 
course — he  has  carried  no  end  of  men  into  Parliament. 
I'll  engage  him  to  meet  us  at  Duffield — say  when?" 

The  conversation  after  this  Avas  driven  carefully  clear  of 
ail  angles,  and  ended  with  determined  amicableness. 
When  Harold,  in  his  ride  an  hour  or  two  afterward, 
encountered  his  uncle  shouldering  a  gun,  and  followed  by 
one  black  and  one  liver -spotted  pointer,  his  muscular 
person  with  its  red  eagle  face  set  off  by  a  velveteen  jacket 
and  leather  leggings,  Mr.  Lingon's  first  question  was — 

"Well,  lad,  how  have  you  got  on  with  Jermyn?'" 


THE   RADICAL.  41 

"  Oh,  I  don't  think  I  shall  like  the  fellow.  He's  a  sort 
of  amateur  gentleman.  But  I  must  make  use  of  him.  I 
expect  whatever  I  get  out  of  him  will  only  be  something 
short  of  fair  pay  for  what  he  has  got  out  of  us.  But  I 
shall  see." 

"Ay,  ay,  use  his  gun  to  bring  down  your  game,  and 
after  that  beat  the  thief  with  the  butt  end.  That's  wis- 
dom and  justice  and  pleasure  all  in  one  —  talking  between 
ourselves  as  uncle  and  nephew.  But  I  say,  Harold,  I  was 
going  to  tell  you,  now  I  come  to  think  of  it,  this  is  rather 
a  nasty  business,  your  calling  yourself  a  Radical.  I've 
been  turning  it  over  in  after-dinner  speeches,  but  it  looks 
awkward — it's  not  what  people  are  used  to — it  wants  a  good 
deal  of  Latin  to  make  it  go  down.  I  shall  be  worried 
about  it  at  the  sessions,  and  I  can  think  of  nothing  neat 
enough  to  carry  about  in  my  pocket  by  way  of  answer." 

"Nonsense,  uncle!  I  remember  what  a  good  speechi- 
fier  you  always  were;  you'll  never  be  at  a  loss.  You  only 
want  a  few  more  evenings  to  think  of  it." 

"  But  you'll  not  be  attacking  the  Church  and  the  insti- 
tutions oi  the  country  —  you'll  not  be  going  those  lengths; 
you'll  keep  up  the  bulwarks,  and  so  on,  eh?" 

"  No,  I  shan't  attack  the  Church,  only  the  incomes  of 
the  bishops,  perhaps,  to  make  them  eke  out  the  incomes 
of  the  poor  clergy." 

"  Well,  well,  I  have  no  objection  to  that.  Nobody  likes 
our  Bishop:  he's  all  Greek  and  greediness;  too  proud  to 
dine  with  his  own  father.  You  may  pepper  the  bishops  a 
little.  But  you'll  respect  the  constitution  handed  down, 
etc.  — and  you'll  rally  round  the  tlirone  —  and  the  King, 
God  bless  him,  and  the  usual  toasts,  eh?" 

"Of  course,  of  course.  I  am  a  Eadical  only  in  rooting 
out  abuses." 

"That's  the  word  I  wanted,  my  lad!"  said  the  vicar, 
slapping  Harold's  knee.  "  That's  a  sjjool  to  wind  a  speech 
on.  Abuses  is  the  very  word;  and  if  anybody  shows  him- 
self offended,  he'll  put  the  cap  on  for  himself." 

"I  remove  the  rotten  timbers,"  said  Harold,  inwardly 
amused,  "and  substitute  fresh  oak,  that's  all." 

"  "Well  done,  my  boy!  By  George,  you'll  be  a  speaker! 
But  I  say,  Harold,  I  hope  you've  got  a  little  Latin  left. 
This  young  Dcbarry  is  a  tremendous  fellow  at  thd  classics, 
and  walks  on  stilts  to  any  length.  He's  one  of  the  new 
Conservatives.  Old  Sir  Maximus  doesn't  understand  him 
at  all." 


42  FELIX   HOLT, 

" That  won't  do  at  the  hustings,"  said  Harold.  ''He'll 
get  knocked  off  his  stilts  pretty  quickly  there," 

"Bless  me!  it's  astonishing  how  well  you're  up  in  the 
affairs  of  the  country,  my  boy.  But  rub  up  a  few  quota- 
tions— 'Quod  turpe  honis  decehat  Crispinuin'  —  and  that 
sort  of  thing — just  to  show  Debarry  what  you  could  do  if 
you  liked.     But  you  want  to  ride  on?"   • 

"  Yes;  I  have  an  appointment  at  Treby.     Good-bye." 

"He's  a  cleverish  chap,"  muttered  the  vicar,  as  Harold 
rode  away.  "When  he's  had  plenty  of  English  exercise, 
and  brought  out  his  knuckle  a  bit,  he'll  be  a  Lingon  again 
as  he  used  to  be.  I  must  go  and  see  how  Arabella  takes 
his  being  a  Eadical.  It's  a  little  awkward;  but  a  clergy- 
man must  keep  ]3eace  in  a  family.  Confound  it!  I'm  not 
bound  to  love  Toryism  better  than  my  own  flesh  and  blood, 
and  the  manor  I  shoot  over.  That's  a  heathenish,  Brutus- 
like sort  of  thing,  as  if  Providence  couldn't  take  care  of 
the  country  without  my  quarreling  with  my  own  sister's 
son!" 


CHAPTEE   III. 

'Twas  town,  yet  country  too;  you  felt  the  warmth 
Of  clustering  houses  in  the  wintry  time  ; 
Supped  with  a  friend,  and  went  by  lantern  home. 
Yet  from  your  chamber  window  you  could  hear 
The  tiny  bleat  of  new-yeaned  lambs,  or  see 
The  children  bend  beside  the  hedgerow  banks 
To  pluck  the  primroses. 

Treby  Magxa,  on  which  the  Reform  Bill  had  thrust 
the  new  honor  of  being  a  polling-place,  had  been,  at  the 
beginning  of  the  century,  quite  a  typical  old  market-toAvn, 
lying  in  pleasant  sleepiness  among  green  pastures,  with  a 
rush-fringed  river  meandering  through  them.  Its  princi- 
pal street  had  various  handsome  and  tall-Avindowed  brick 
houses  with  walled  gardens  behind  them;  and  at  the 
end,  where  it  widened  into  the  market-place,  there  was 
the  cheerful  rough-stuccoed  front  of  that  excellent  inn, 
the  Marquis  of  Granby,  where  the  farmers  put  up  their 
gigs,  not  only  on  fair  and  market  days,  but  on  exceptional 
Sundays  when  they  came  to  church.  And  the  church  was 
one  of  those  fine  old  English  structures  worth  traveling 
to  see,  standing  in  a  broad  church-yard  with  a  line  of 
solemn  yew-trees  beside  it,  and  lifting  a  majestic  tower 


THE   EADICAL.  43 

and  spire  far  above  the  red-and-purple  roofs  of  the 
town.  It  was  not  large  enough  to  hold  all  the  parishion- 
ers of  a  parish  which  stretched  over  distant  villages  and 
hamlets;  but  then  they  were  never  so  unreasonable  as  to 
wish  to  be  all  in  at  once,  and  had  never  complained  tbat 
the  space  of  a  large  side-chapel  was  taken  up  by  the  tombs 
of  the  Debarrys,  and  shut  in  by  a  handsome  iron  screen. 
For  when  the  black  Benedictines  ceased  to  pray  and  chant 
in  this  church,  when  the  Blessed  Virgin  and  St,  Gregory 
were  expelled,  the  Debarrys,  as  lords  of  the  manor,  natu- 
rally came  next  to  Providence  and  took  the  place  of  the 
saints.  Long  before  that  time,  indeed,  there  had  been  a 
Sir  Maximus  Debarry  who  had  been  at  the  fortifying  of 
the  old  castle,  which  now  stood  in  ruins  in  the  midst  of 
the  green  pastures,  and  with  its  sheltering  wall  toward 
the  north  made  an  excellent  strawyard  for  the  pigs  of 
Wace  &  Co.,  brewers  of  the  celebrated  Treby  beer. 
Wace  &  Co.  did  not  stand  alone  in  the  town  as  prosperous 
traders  on  a  large  scale,  to  say  nothing  of  those  who  had 
retired  from  business;  and  in  no  country  town  of  the  same 
small  size  as  Treby  was  there  a  larger  proportion  of  fami- 
lies who  had  handsome  sets  of  china  without  handles, 
hereditary  punch-bowls,  and  large  silver  ladles  with  a 
Queen  Anne's  guinea  in  the  centre.  Such  peojile  naturally 
took  tea  and  supped  together  frequently;  and  as  there  was 
no  professional  man  or  tradesman  in  Treby  who  was  not 
connected  by  business,  if  not  by  blood,  with  the  farmers 
of  the  district,  the  richer  sort  of  these  were  much  invited, 
and  gave  invitations  in  their  turn.  They  played  at  whist, 
ate  and  drank  generously,  praised  Mr.  Pitt  and  the  war  as 
keeping  up  prices  and  religion,  and  were  very  humorous 
about  each  other's  property,  having  much  the  same  coy 
pleasure  in  allusions  to  their  secret  ability  to  purchase,  as 
blushing  lasses  sometimes  have  in  jokes  about  their  secret 
preferences.  The  rector  was  always  of  the  Debarry 
family,  associated  only  with  county  people,  and  was  much 
respected  for  his  affability;  a  clergyman  Avho  would  have 
taken  tea  with  the  townspeople  would  have  given  a  danger- 
ous shock  to  the  mind  of  a  Treby  churchman. 

Such  was  the  old-fashioned,  grazing,  brewing,  wool- 
packing,  cheese-loading  life  of  Treby  Magna,  until  there 
befell  new  conditions,  complicating  its  relation  with  the 
rest  of  the  world,  and  gradually  awakening  in  it  that 
higher  consciousness  which  is  known  to  bring  higher  pains. 
First  came  the  canal;  next,  the  working  of  the  coal-mines 


44  FELIX   HOLT, 

at  Sproxton,  two  miles  off  the  town;  and  thirdly,  the  dis- 
covery of  a  saline  spring,  which  suggested  to  a  too  con- 
structive  brain  the   possibility  of  turning  Treby  Magna 
into  a  fashionable  watering-place.     So  daring  an  idea  was 
7iot  originated  by  a  native  Trebian,  but  by  a  young  lawyer 
who  came  fi-om  a  distance,  knew  the  dictionary  by  heart, 
and  was  probably  an  illegitimate  son  of  somebody  or  other. 
The  idea,  although  it  promised  an  increase  of  wealth  to 
the  town,  was  not  well  received  at  first;  ladies  objected 
to  seeing   "objects"  drawn  about  in  hand-carriages,  the 
doctor  foresaw  the  advent  of  unsound  practitioners,  and 
most    retail    tradesmen    concurred   with    him   that    new 
doings  were  usually  for  the  advantage  of  new  people.     The 
more  unanswerable  reasoners  urged  that  Treby  had  pros- 
pered without  baths,  and  it  was  yet  to  be  seen  how  it 
would  prosper  witli  them;  while  a  report  that  the  proposed 
name  for  them  was  Bethesda  Spa,  threatened  to  give  the 
whole  affair  a  blasphemous  aspect.     Even  Sir  Maximus 
Debarry,  who  was  to  have  an  unprecedented  return  for  the 
thousands  he  would  lay  out  on  a  pump-room  and  hotel, 
regarded  the  thing  as  a  little  too  new,  and  held  back  for 
some  time.     But  the  persuasive  powers  of  the  young  lawyer, 
Mr.  Matthew  Jermyn,  together  with  the  opportune  open- 
ing of   stone-quarry,   triumphed   at   last;    the  handsome 
buildings  were  erected,  an  excellent  guide-book  and  de- 
scriptive cards,   surmounted  by  vignettes,   were  printed, 
and  Treby  Magna  became  conscious  of  certain  facts  in  its 
own  history  of  which  it  had  previously  been  in  contented 
ignorance. 

But  it  was  all  in  vain.  The  Spa,  for  some  mysterious 
reason,  did  not  succeed.  Some  attributed  the  failure  to 
the  coal-mines  and  the  canal;  others  to  the  peace,  which 
had  had  ruinous  effects  on  the  country;  and  others,  who 
disliked  Jermyn,  to  the  original  folly  of  the  plan.  Among 
these  last  was  Sir  Maximus  himself,  who  never  forgave  the 
loo  persuasive  attorney;  it  was  Jermyn's  fault  not  only 
that  a  useless  hotel  had  been  built,  but  that  he.  Sir  Maxi- 
mus, being  straitened  for  money,  had  at  last  let  the  build- 
ing, with  the  adjacent  land  lying  on  the  river,  on  a  long 
lease,  on  the  supposition  that  it  was  to  be  turned  into  a  ^ 
benevolent  college,  and  liad  seen  himself  subsequently 
powerless  to  prevent  its  being  turned  into  a  tape  manu- 
factory— a  bitter  thing  to  any  gentleman,  and  especially  to 
the  representative  of  one  of  the  oldest  families  in  England. 

In  this  way  it  happened  that  Treby  Magna  gradually 


THE   RADICAL.  45 

passed  from  being  simply  a  respectable  market  town — the 
neart  of  a  great  rural  district,  where  the  trade  was  only 
such  as  had  close  relations  with  the  local  landed  interest — 
and  took  on  the  more  complex  life  brought  by  mines  and 
manufactures,  which  belong  more  directly  to  the  great  cir- 
culating system  of  the  nation  than  to  the  local  system 
to  which  they  have  been  superadded;  and  in  this  way  it 
was  that  Trebian  Dissent  gradually  altered  its  character. 
Formerly  it  had  been  of  a  quiescent,  well-to-do  kind,  rep- 
resented architecturally  by  a  small,  venerable,  dark-pewed 
chapel,  built  by  Presbyterians,  but  long  occupied  by  a  sparse 
congregation  of  Independents,  who  were  as  little  moved 
by  doctrinal  zeal  as  their  church-going  neighbors,  and  did 
not  feel  themselves  deficient  in  religious  liberty,  inasmuch 
as  they  were  not  hindered  from  occasionally  slumbering  in 
their  pews,  and  were  not  obliged  to  go  regularly  to  the 
weekly  prayer-meeting.  But  when  stone-pits  and  coal-pits 
made  new  hamlets  that  threatened  to  spread  up  to  the  very 
town,  when  the  tape-weavers  came  with  their  news-reading 
inspectors  and  book-keepers,  the  Independent  chapel  began 
to  be  filled  with  eager  men  and  women,  to  whom  the  excep- 
tional possession  of  religious  truth  was  the  condition  which 
reconciled  them  to  a  meagre  existence,  and  made  them 
feel  in  secure  alliance  with  the  unseen  but  supreme  rule  of 
a  world  in  which  their  own  visible  part  was  small.  There 
were  Dissenters  in  Treby  now  who  could  not  be  regarded 
by  the  Church  people  in  the  light  of  old  neighbors  to 
whom  the  habit  of  going  to  chapel  was  an  innocent, 
unenviable  inheritance  along  with  a  particular  house  and 
garden,  a  tan-yard,  or  a  grocery  business  —  Dissenters 
who,  in  their  turn,  without  meaning  to  be  in  the  least 
abusive,  spoke  of  the  high-bred  rector  as  a  blind  leader  of 
the  blind.  And  Dissent  was  not  the  only  thing  that  the 
times  had  altered;  prices  had  fallen,  poor-rates  had  risen, 
rent  and  tithe  were  not  elastic  enough,  and  the  farmer's 
fat  sorrow  had  become  lean;  he  began  to  speculate  on 
causes,  and  to  trace  things  back  to  that  causeless  mystery, 
the  cessation  of  one-pound  notes.  Tlius,  when  political 
agitation  swept  in  a  great  current  through  the  countiy, 
Treby  Magna  was  prepared  to  vibrate.  The  Catholic 
Emancipation  Bill  opened  the  eyes  of  neighbors,  and 
made  them  aware  how  very  injurious  they  were  to  each 
other  and  to  the  Avelwarc  of  mankind  generally.  Mr. 
Tiliot,  the  Church  spirit-merchant,  knew  now  that  Mr. 
Nuttwood,   the  obliging  grocer,  was  one  of  those  Dis- 


46  FELIX    HOLT, 

senters,  Deists,  Socinians,  Papists,  and  Eadicals,  who 
were  in  league  to  destroy  the  Constitution.  A  retired 
old  London  tradesman,  who  was  believed  to  understand 
politics,  said  that  thinking  people  must  wish  George  III. 
were  alive  again  in  all  his  early  vigor  of  mind:  and  even 
the  farmers  became  less  materialistic  in  their  view  of 
causes,  and  referred  much  to  the  agency  of  the  devil  and 
tlie  Irish  Eomans.  The  rector,  the  Reverend  Augustus 
Debarry,  really  a  fine  specimen  of  the  old-fashioned 
aristocratic  clergyman,  preaching  short  sermons,  under- 
standing business,  and  acting  liberally  about  his  tithe, 
had  never  before  found  himself  in  collision  with  Dis- 
senters; but  now  he  began  to  feel  that  these  people  were 
a  nuisance  in  the  parish,  that  his  brother  Sir  Maximus 
must  take  care  lest  they  should  get  land  to  build  more 
chapels,  and  that  it  might  not  have  been  a  bad  thing 
if  the  law  had  furnished  him  as  a  magistrate  M'ith  a 
power  of  putting  a  stop  to  the  i:)olitical  sermons  of  the 
Independent  preacher,  which,  m  their  way,  were  as  per- 
nicious sources  of  intoxication  as  the  beerhouses.  The 
Dissenters,  on  their  side,  were  not  disposed  to  sacrifice  the 
cause  of  trutli  and  freedom  to  a  temporizing  mildness  of 
language;  but  they  defended  themselves  from  the  charge 
of  religious  indifference,  and  solemnly  disclaimed  any  lax 
expectations  that  Catholics  were  likely  to  be  saved — urging, 
on  the  contrary,  that  they  were  not  too  hopeful  about 
Protestants  who  adhered  to  a  bloated  and  worldly  Prelacy. 
Thus  Treby  Magna,  which  had  lived  quietly  through 
the  great  earthquakes  of  the  French  Revolution  and  the 
Napoleonic  wars,  which  had  remained  unmoved  bv  the 
"  Rights  of  Man,"  and  saw  little  in  Mr.  Cobbett's  "  W'eekly 
Register"  except  that  he  held  eccentric  views  about  potatoes, 
began  at  last  to  know  the  higher  pains  of  a  dim  political 
consciousness;  and  the  development  had  been  greatly  helped 
by  the  recent  agitation  about  the  Reform  Bill.  Tory,  Whig, 
and  Radical  did  not  perhaps  become  clearer  in  their  defini- 
tion of  each  other;  but  the  names  seemed  to  acquire  so 
strong  a  stamp  of  honor  or  infamy,  that  definitions  would 
only  have  Aveakened  the  impression.  As  to  the  short  and 
easy  method  of  judging  opinions  by  the  personal  character 
of  those  who  held  them,  it  was  liable  to  be  much  frus- 
trated in  Treby.  It  so  happened  in  that  particular  town 
that_  the  Reformers  were  not  all  of  them  large-hearted 
patriots  or  ardent  lovers  of  justice;  indeed,  one  of  them, 
in  the  very  midst  of  the  agitation,  was  detected  in  using 


THE   EADICAL.  47 

unequal  scales — a  fact  to  which  many  Tories  pointed  with 
disgust  as  showing  plainly  enough,  without  further  argu- 
ment, that  the  cry  for  a  change  in  the  representative 
system  was  hollow  trickery.  Again,  the  Tories  were  far 
from  being  all  opin'essors,  disposed  to  grind  down  the 
working  classes  into  serfdom;  and  it  was  undeniable  that 
tlie  inspector  at  the  tape  manufactory,  who  spoke  with 
much  eloquence  on  the  extension  of  the  suffrage,  was  a 
more  tyrannical  personage  than  open-handed  Mr.  Wace, 
whose  chief  political  tenet  Avas,  that  it  was  all  nonsense  to 
give  men  votes  when  they  had  no  stake  in  tlie  country. 
On  the  other  hand  there  were  some  Tories  who  gave  them- 
selves a  great  deal  of  leisure  to  abuse  hypocrites,  Radicals, 
Dissenters,  and  atheism  generally,  but  whose  inflamed 
faces,  theistic  swearing,  and  frankness  in  expressing  a  wisli 
to  borrow,  certainly  did  not  mark  them  out  strongly  as 
liolding  opinions  likely  to  save  society. 

The  Reformers  had  triumphed:  it  was  clear  that  the 
wheels  were  going  Avhither  they  were  pulling,  and  they 
were  in  fine  spirits  for  exertion.  But  if  they  were  pulling 
toward  the  country's  ruin,  there  wa,^  the  more  need  for 
others  to  hang  on  behind  and  get  the  wheels  to  stick  if 
possible.  In  Treby,  as  elsewhere,  people  were  told  they 
must  "rally"  at  the  coming  election;  but  there  Avas  now  a 
large  number  of  waverers  —  men  of  flexible,  practical 
minds,  who  were  not  such  bigots  as  to  cling  to  any  views 
when  a  good  tangible  reason  could  be  urged  against  them; 
while  some  regarded  it  as  tlie  most  neighborly  thing  to 
hold  a  little  with  both  sides,  and  were  not  sure  that  they 
should  rally  or  vote  at  all.  It  seemed  an  invidious  thing 
to  vote  for  one  gentleman  rather  than  another. 

These  social  changes  in  Treby  parish  are  comparatively 
public  matters,  and  this  history  is  chiefly  concerned  with 
(he  private  lot  of  a  few  men  and  women;  but  there  is  no 
jirivate  life  wliich  has  not  been  determined  by  a  wider 
public  life,  from  the  time  when  the  primeval  milkn^aid 
had  to  wander  with  the  wanderings  of  her  clan,  because 
the  cow  she  milked  was  one  of  a  herd  which  had  made 
the  pastures  bare.  Even  in  that  conservatory  existence 
where  the  fair  Camellia  is  sighed  for  by  the  noble  young 
Pine-apple,  neither  of  them  needing  to  care  about  the  frost, 
or  rain  outside,  there  is  a  nether  apparatus  of  hot-water 
pipes  liable  to  cool  down  on  a  strike  of  the  gardeners  or  a 
scarcity  of  coal.  And  the  lives  we  are  about  to  look 
back  upon  do  not  belong  to  those  conservatory  species; 


48  FELIX  HOLT, 

they  are  rooted  in  the  common  earth,  having  to  endure 
all  the  ordinary  chances  of  past  and  present  weather.  As 
to  the  weather  of  1833,  the  Zadkiel  of  that  time  had  pre- 
dicted that  the  electrical  condition  of  the  clouds  in  the 
political  hemisphere  would  produce  unusual  perturbations 
in  organic  existence,  a,nd  he  would  perhaps  have  seen  a  ful- 
fillment of  his  remarkable  prophecy  in  that  mutual  influ- 
ence of  dissimilar  destinies  which  we  shall  see  gradually 
unfolding  itself.  For  if  the  mixed  political  conditions  of 
Treby  Magna  had  not  been  acted  on  by  the  passing  of  the 
Reform  Bill,  Mr,  Harold  Transome  would  not  have  presented 
himself  as  a  candidate  for  North  Loamshire,  Treby  would 
not  have  been  a  polling-place,  Mr.  Matthew  Jermyn  would 
not  have  been  on  affable  terms  with  a  Dissenting  preacher 
and  his  flock,  and  the  venerable  town  would  not  have  been 
placarded  with  handbills,  more  or  less  complimentary 
and  retrospective — conditions  in  this  case  essential  to  the 
''where,"  and  the  "what,"  without  which,  as  the  learned 
know,  there  can  be  no  event  whatever. 

For  example,  it  was  through  these  conditions  that  a 
young  man  named  Felix  Holt  made  a  considerable  differ- 
ence in  the  life  of  Harold  Transome,  though  nature  and  fort- 
une seemed  to  have  done  what  they  could  to  keep  the  lots  of 
the  two  men  quite  aloof  from  each  other.  Felix  was  heir 
to  nothing  better  than  a  quack  medicine;  his  mother  lived 
up  a  back  street  in  Treby  Magna,  and  her  sitting-room  was 
ornamented  with  her  best  tea-tray  and  several  framed  testi- 
monials to  the  virtues  of  Holt's  Cathartic  Lozenges  and 
Holt's  Restorative  Elixir.  There  could  hardly  have  been  a 
lot  less  like  Harold  Transome's  than  this  of  the  quack  doc- 
tor's son,  except  in  the  superficial  facts  that  he  called  himself 
a  Radical,  that  he  was  the  only  son  of  his  mother,  and  that 
he  had  lately  returned  to  his  home  with  ideas  and  resolves 
not  a  little  disturbing  to  that  mother's  mind. 

But  Mrs.  Holt,  unlike  Mrs.  Transome,  was  much  dis- 
posed to  reveal  her  troubles,  and  was  not  without  a  coun- 
selor into  whose  ear  she  could  pour  them.  On  this  second  of 
September,  when  Mr.  Harold  Transome  had  had  his  first 
interview  with  Jermyn,  and  when  the  attorney  went  back 
to  his  office  with  new  views  of  canvassing  in  his  mind,  Mrs. 
Holt  had  put  on  her  bonnet  as  early  as  nine  o'clock  in  the 
morning,  anid  had  gone  to  see  the  Reverend  Rufus  Lyon, 
minister  of  the  Independent  Chapel  usually  spoken  of  as 
^'Malthouse  Yard." 


THE  RADICAL.  49 

CHAPTER  rV. 

*'  A  pious  and  painful  preacher."— T'trUiEB. 

Mr.  Lyo]s"  lived  in  a  small  house,  not  quite  so  good  as 
the  parish  clerk's,  adjoining  the  entry  which  led  to  the 
Ohapel  Yard.  The  new  prosperity  of  Dissent  at  Treby 
had  led  to  an  enlargement  of  the  chapel,  which  absorbed 
all  extra  funds  and  left  none  for  the  enlargement  of  the 
minister's  income.  He  sat  this  morning,  as  usual,  in  a  low 
up-stairs  room,  called  his  study,  which,  by  means  of  a 
closet  capable  of  holding  his  bed,  served  also  as  a  sleeping- 
room.  The  book-shelves  did  not  suffice  for  his  store  of 
old  books,  which  lay  about  him  in  piles  so  arranged  as  to 
leave  narrow  lanes  between  them;  for  the  minister  was 
much  given  to  walking  about  during  his  hours  of  medita- 
tion, and  very  narrow  passages  would  serve  for  his  small 
legs,  unencumbered  by  any  other  drapery  than  his  black 
silk  stockings  and  the  flexible,  though  prominent,  bows  of 
black  ribbon  that  tied  his  knee-breeches.  He  was  walking 
about  now,  with  his  hands  clasped  behind  him,  an  attitude 
in  whicli  his  body  seemed  to  bear  about  the  same  propor- 
tion to  his  head  as  the  lower  part  of  a  stone  Hermes  bears 
to  the  carveu  image  that  crowns  it.  His  face  looked  old 
and  worn,  yet  the  curtain  of  hair  that  fell  from  his  bald 
crown  and  hung  about  his  neck  retained  much  of  its 
original  auburn  tint,  and  his  large,  brown,  short-sighted 
eyes  were  still  clear  and  bright.  At  the  first  glance,  every 
one  thought  him  a  very  odd-looking  rusty  old  man;  the 
free-school  boys  often  hooted  after  him,  and  called  him 
"Revelations'";  and  to  many  respectable  Church  jjeople, 
old  Lyon's  little  legs  and  large  head  seemed  to  make  Dis- 
sent additionally  preposterous.  But  ho  was  too  short- 
sighted to  notice  those  Avho  tittered  at  him — too  absent 
from  the  world  of  small  facts  and  petty  impulses  in  which 
titterers  live.  With  Satan  to  arsrue  against  on  matters  of 
vital  experience  as  well  as  of  church  government,  with 
great  texts  to  meditate  on,  which  seemed  to  get  deeper  as 
he  tried  to  fathom  them,  it  had  never  occurred  to  him  to 
reflect  what  sort  of  image  his  small  person  made  on  the 
retina  of  a  light-minded  beholder.  The  good  Rufus  had 
his  ire  and  his  egoism;  but  they  existed  only  as  the  red 
heat  which  gave  force  to  his  belief  and  his  teacliiug.     He 


50  FELIX    HOLT, 

was  susceptible  concerning  the  true  office  of  deacons  in 
the  primitive  Church,  and  his  small  nervous  body  was 
jarred  from  head  to  foot  by  the  concussion  of  an  argument 
to  which  he  saw  no  answer.  In  fact,  the  only  moments 
when  he  could  be  said  to  be  really  conscious  of  his  body, 
were  when  he  trembled  under  the  pressure  of  some  agitat- 
ing thought. 

He  was  meditating  on  the  text  for  his  Sunday  morning 
sermon,  "And  all  the  people  said,  Amen" — a  mere 
mustard-seed  of  a  text,  which  had  split  at  first  only  into 
two  divisions,  "  AVhat  was  said,"  and  "  Wlio  said  it'" ; 
but  these  were  growing  into  a  many-branched  discourse, 
and  the  preacher's  eyes  dilated,  and  a  smile  phiyed  about 
his  mouth  till,  as  his  manner  was,  when  he  felt  happily 
inspired,  he  had  begun  to  utter  his  thoughts  aloud  in  the 
varied  measure  and  cadence  habitual  to  him,  changing 
from  a  rapid  but  distinct  undertone  to  a  loud  emphatic 
rallentando. 

"  My  brethren,  do  you  think  that  great  shout  was  raised 
in  Israel  by  each  man's  waiting  to  say  'amen'  till  his 
neighbors  had  said  amen?  Do  you  think  there  Aviil  ever 
be  a  gveat  shout  for  the  right — the  shout  of  a  nation  as  of 
one  man,  rounded  and  whole,  like  the  voice  of  the  arch- 
angel that  bound  together  all  the  listeners  of  earth  and 
heaven — if  every  Christian  of  you  peeps  round  to  see 
what  his  neighbors  in  good  coats  are  doing,  or  else  puts  his 
hat  before  his  face  that  he  may  shout  and  never  be  heard? 
But  this  is  what  you  do:  when  the  servant  of  God  stands 
up  to  deliver  his  message,  do  you  lay  your  souls  beneath 
the  Word  as  you  set  out  your  plants  beneath  the  falling- 
rain?  No;  one  of  you  sends  his  eyes  to  all  corners,  he 
smothers  his  soul  with  small  questions,  'What  does  brother 
Y.  think?'  'Is  this  doctrine  high  enough  for  brother  Z.  ?' 
'  Will  the  church  members  be  pleased  ? '    And  another- 


Here  the  door  was  opened,  and  old  Lyddy,  the  minister's 
servant,  put  in  her  head  to  say,  in  a  tone  of  desi^ondency, 
finishing  with  a  groan,  "Here  is  Mrs.  Holt  wanting  to 
speak  to  you;  she  says  she  comes  out  of  season,  but  she's 
in  trouble." 

"Lyddy,"  said  Mr.  Lyon,  falling  at  once  into  a  quiet 
conversational  tone,  "if  you  are  wrestling  with  the  enemy, 
let  me  refer  you  to  Ezekiel  the  thirteenth  and  twenty- 
second,  and  beg  of  you  not  to  groan.  It  is  a  stumbling- 
block  and  offense  to  my  daughter;  she  would  take  no  broth 
yesterday,  because  she  said  you  had  cried  into  it.     Thus 


THE   RADICAL.  51 

you  cause  the  truth  to  be  liglitl}''  spoken  of,  and  make  the 
enemy  rejoice.  If  your  faceache  gives  him  an  advantage, 
take  a  little  warm  ale  with  your  meat — I  do  not  grudge 
the  money/' 

"  If  I  thought  my  drinking  warm  ale  would  hinder  poor 
dear  Miss  Esther  from  sj^eaking  light — but  she  hates  the 
smell  of  it." 

''Answer  not  again,  Lyddy,  but  send  up  Mistress  Holt 
to  me." 

Lyddy  closed  the  door  immediately. 

"  I  lack  grdce  to  deal  with  these  weak  sisters,"  said  the 
minister,  again  thinking  aloud,  and  walking.  "Their 
needs  lie  too  much  out  of  the  track  of  my  meditations, 
and  take  me  often  unawares.  Mistress  Holt  is  another 
who  darkens  counsel  by  words  Avithout  knowledge,  and 
angers  the  reason  of  the  natural  man.  Lord,  give  me 
patience.  My  sins  were  heavier  to  bear  than  this  woman's 
folly.     Come  in,  Mrs.  Holt — come  in." 

He  hastened  to  disencumber  a  chair  of  Matthew  Henry's 
Commentary,  and  begged  his  visitor  to  be  seated.  She 
was  a  tall  elderly  woman,  dressed  in  black,  with  a  light- 
brown  front  and  a  black  band  over  her  forehead.  Slie 
moved  the  chair  a  little  and  seated  herself  in  it  Avith  some 
emphasis,  looking  fixedly  at  the  opposite  wall  with  a  hurt 
and  argumentative  expression.  Mr.  Lyon  had  placed 
himself  in  the  chair  against  his  desk,  and  waited  with  the 
resolute  resignation  of  a  patient  who  is  about  to  undergo 
an  operation.     But  his  visitor  did  not  speak. 

"You  have  something  on  your  mind,  Mrs.  Holt?"  he 
said,  at  last. 

"Indeed  I  have,  sir,  else  I  shouldn't  be  here." 

"Speak  freely." 

"  It's  well  known  to  you,  Mr.  Lyon,  that  my  husband, 
Mr.  Holt,  came  from  the  north,  and  was  a  member  in 
Malthouse  Yard  long  before  'i^ou  began  to  be  pastor  of  it, 
which  was  seven  ye;xr  ago  last  Michaelmas.  It's  the 
truth,  Mr.  Lyon,  and  I'm  not  that  woman  to  sit  here  and 
say  it  if  it  wasn't  true." 

"Certainly,  it  is  true." 

"  And  if  my  husband  had  been  alive  when  you'd  come 
to  preach  upon  trial,  he'd  have  been  as  good  a  judge  of 
your  gifts  as  Mr.  Nuttwood  or  Mr.  Muscat,  though  whether 
he'd  have  agreed  with  some  tliat  your  doctrine  wasn't  high 
enough,  I  can't  say.  For  myself,  I've  my  opinion  about 
high  doctrine." 


52  PELIX   HOLT, 

'•^Was  it  my  preaching  you  came  to  speak  about?''  said 
the  minister,  hurrying  in  the  question. 

"  Xo,  Mr.  Lyon,  Tni  not  that  woman.  But  this  I  will 
say,  for  my  husband  died  before  your  time,  that  he  had  a 
wonderful  gift  in  jorayer,  as  tlie  old  members  well  know,  if 
anybody  likes  to  ask  'em,  not  believing  my  words;  and  he 
believed  himself  that  the  receipt  for  the  Cancer  Cure, 
which  Fve  sent  out  in  bottles  till  this  very  last  April  before 
September  as  now  is,  and  have  bottles  standing  by  me, — 
he  believed  it  was  sent  to  him  in  answer  to  prayer;  and 
nobody  can  deny  it,  for  he  prayed  most  regular,  and  read 
out  of  the  green  baize  Bible." 

Mrs.  Holt  paused,  appearing  to  think  that  Mr.  Lyon  had 
been  successfully  confuted,  and  should  show  himself  con- 
vinced. 

"  Has  any  one  been  aspersing  your  husband's  character?  " 
said  Mr.  Lyon,  with  a  slight  initiative  toward  that  relief 
of  groaning  for  which  he  had  reproved  Lyddy. 

"  Sir,  they  daredn't.  For  though  he  was  a  man  of 
prayer,  he  didn't  want  skill  and  knowledge  to  find  things 
out  for  himself;  and  that  was  what  I  used  to  say  to  my 
friends  when  they  wondered  at  my  marrying  a  man  from 
Lancashire,  with  no  trade  nor  fortune  but  what  he'd  got 
in  his  head.  But  my  husband's  tongue  'ud  have  been  a 
fortune  to  anybody,  and  there  was  many  a  one  said  it  Avas 
as  good  as  a  dose  of  physic  to  hear  him  talk;  not  but  what 
that  got  him  into  trouble  in  Lancashire,  but  he  always  said, 
if  the  worst  came  to  the  worst,  he  could  go  and  preach  to 
the  blacks.  But  he  did  better  than  that,  Mr.  Lyon,  for  he 
married  me;  and  this  I  ivill  say,  that  for  age,  and  conduct, 
and  managing " 

"  Mistress  Holt," interrupted  the  minister,  "these are  not 
the  things  whereby  we  may  edify  one  another.  Let  me 
beg  of  you  to  be  as  brief  as  you  can.  My  time  is  not  my 
own." 

"Well,  Mr.  Lyon,  I've  a  right  to  speak  to  my  own 
character;  and  I'm  one  of  your  congregation,  though  I'm 
not  a  church  member,  for  I  was  born  in  the  General  Bap- 
tist connection;  and  as  for  being  saved  without  works, 
there's  a  many,  I  dare  say,  can't  do  without  that  doctrine; 
but  I  thank  the  Lord  I  never  needed  to  jDut  my&elf  on  a 
level  with  the  thief  on  the  cross.  I've  done  my  duty,  and 
more,  if  anybody  comes  to  that;  for  I've  gone  without  my 
bit  of  meat  to  make  broth  for  a  sick  neighbor:  and  if 
there's  any  of  the  church  members  say  they've  done  the 


THE   RADICAL.  53 

same,  Fd  ask  them  if  they  had  the  sinking  at  the  stomach 
as  I  have ;  for  Tve  ever  strove  to  do  the  right  thing, 
and  more,  for  good-natured  I  always  was ;  and  I  little 
thought,  after  being  respected  by  everybody,  I  should 
come  to  be  reproached  by  my  own  son.  And  my  husband 
said,  when  he  was  a-dying — 'Mary,"*  he  said,  'the  Elixir, 
and  the  Pills,  and  the  Cure  will  support  you,  for  they've 
a  great  name  in  all  the  country  rouncl,  and  you'll  pray  for 
a  blessing  on  them.'  And  so  I  have  done,  Mr.  Lyon;  and 
to  say  they're  not  good  medicines,  when  they've  been  taken 
for  fifty  miles  round  by  high  and  low,  and  rich  and  poor, 
and  nobody  speaking  against  'em  but  Dr.  Lukin,  it  seems 
to  me  it's  a  flying  in  the  face  of  Heaven;  for  if  it  was 
wrons:  to  take  the  medicines,  couldn't  the  blessed  Lord 
have  stopped  it?" 

Mrs.  Holt  Wiis  not  given  to  tears;  she  was  much  sustained 
by  conscious  unimpeachableness,  and  by  an  argumentative 
tendency  which  usually  checks  the  too  great  activity  of 
the  lachrymal  gland;  nevertheless  her  eyes  had  become 
moist,  her  fingers  played  on  her  knee  in  an  agitated  man- 
ner, and  she  finally  plucked  a  bit  of  her  gown  and  held  it 
with  great  nicety  between  her  thumb  and  finger.  Mr. 
Lyon,  however,  by  listening  attentive!}',  had  begun  partly 
to  divine'the  source  of  her  trouble. 

"Am  I  wrong  in  gathering  from  what  you  say.  Mistress 
Holt,  that  your  son  has  objected  in  some  Avay  to  your  sale 
of  your  late  husband's  medicines?" 

"  Mr.  Lyon,  he's  masterful  beyond  everything,  and  he 
talks  more  than  his  father  did.  I've  got  my  reason,  Mr. 
Lyon,  and  if  anybody  talks  sense  I  can  follow  him;  but 
Felix  talks  so  wild,  and  contradicts  his  mother.  And 
what  do  you  think  he  says,  after  giving  up  his  'prentice- 
ship,  and  going  off  to  study  at  Glasgow,  and  getting 
through  all  the  bit  of  money  his  father  saved  for  his 
bringing-uj) — what  has  all  his  learning  come  to?  He  says 
I'd  better  never  open  my  Bible,  for  it's  as  bad  poison  to 
me  as  the  pills  are  to  half  the  people  as  swallow  ^em. 
You'll  not  speak  of  this  again,  ]\Ir.  Lyon  —  I  don't  think 
ill  enough  of  you  to  believe  tliat.  For  I  suppose  a  Chris- 
tian can  understand  the  word  o'  God  without  going  to 
Glasgow,  and  there's  texts  upon  texts  about  ointment  and 
medicine,  and  there's  one  as  might  have  been  made  for  a 
receipt  of  my  husband's  —  it's  just  as  if  it  was  a  riddle, 
and  Holt's  Elixir  was  the  answer." 

"Your  son  uses  rash  words.  Mistress  Holt/'  said  the 


54  FELIX   HOLT, 

minister,  "  but  it  is  quite  true  that  we  may  err  in  giving 
a  too  private  interpretation  to  the  Scripture.  The 
word  of  Gord  has  to  satisfy  the  larger  needs  of  His 
people,  like  the  rain  and  the  sunshine — Avhich  no  man 
must  think  to  be  meant  for  his  own  patch  of  seed-ground 
solely.  Will  it  not  be  well  that  I  should  see  your  son,  and 
talk  with  him  on  these  matters?  He  was  at  chapel,  I 
observed,  and  I  suppose  I  am  to  be  his  pastor.'' 

"That  was  what  I  wanted  to  ask  you,  Mr.  Lyon.  For 
perhaps  he'll  listen  to  you,  and  not  talk  you  down  as  he 
does  his  poor  mother.  For  after  we'd  been  to  chapel,  he 
spoke  better  of  you  than  he  does  of  most:  he  said  you  was 
a  fine  old  fellow,  and  an  old-fashioned  Puritan — Le  uses 
dreadful  language,  Mr.  Lyon;  but  I  saw  he  didn't  mean 
you  ill,  for  all  that.  He  calls  most  folks's  religion  rotten- 
ness; and  yet  another  time  he'll  tell  me  I  ought  to  feel 
myself  a  sinner,  and  do  God's  will  and  not  my  own.  But 
it's  my  belief  he  says  first  one  thing  and  then  another  only 
to  abuse  his  mother.  Or  else  he's  going  off  his  head,  and 
must  be  sent  to  a  'sylum.  But  if  he  writes  to  the  'North 
Loamshire  Hei-ald'  first,  to  tell  everybody  the  medicines 
are  good  for  nothing,  how  can  I  ever  keep  him  and 
myself?" 

"  Tell  him  I  shall  feel  favored  if  he  will  come  and  see 
me  this  evening,"  said  Mr.  Lyon,  not  without  a  little 
prejudice  in  favor  of  the  young  man,  whose  language 
about  the  preacher  in  Malthouse  Yard  did  not  seem  to  him 
to  be  altogether  dreadful.  "  Meanwhile,  my  friend,  I 
counsel  you  to  send  up  a  supplication,  which  I  shall  not 
fail  to  offer  also,  that  3'ou  may  receive  a  spirit  of  humility 
and  submission,  so  that  you  may  not  be  hindered  from 
seeing  and  following  the  Divine  guidance  in  this  matter  by 
any  false  lights  of  joride  and  obstinacy.  Of  this  more 
when  I  have  spoken  with  your  son." 

"Fm  not  proud  or  obstinate,  Mr.  Lyon.  I  never  did 
say  I  was  everything  that  was  bad,  and  I  never  will.  And 
why  this  trouble  should  be  sent  on  me  above  everybody 
else — for  I  haven't  told  you  all.  He's  made  himself  a 
journeyman  to  Mr.  Prowd  the  watchmaker — after  all  this . 
learning — and  he  says  he'll  go  with  patches  on  his  knees, 
and  he  shall  like  himself  the  better.  And  as  for  his  hav- 
ing little  boys  to  teach,  they'll  come  in  all  weathers  with 
dirty  shoes.  If  it's  madness,  Mr.  Lyon,  it's  no  use  your 
talking  to  him." 

"  We  shall  see.     Perhaps  it  may  even  be  the  disguised 


THE   EADICAL.  55 

working  of  grace  within  liim.  We  must  not  judge  raslily. 
Many  eminent  servants  of  God  have  been  led  by  ways  as 
strange/' 

"Then  I'm  sorry  for  their  mothers,  that's  all,  Mr,  Lyon: 
and  all  the  more  if  they'd  been  well-spoken-on  women. 
For  not  my  biggest  enemy,  whether  it's  he  or  she,  if  they'll 
speak  the  truth,  can  tarn  round  and  say  I've  deserved  this 
trouble.  And  when  everybody  gets  their  due,  and  peo- 
ple's doings  are  spoke  of  on  the  liouse-tops,  as  the  Bible 
says  they  will  be,  it'll  be  known  what  I've  gone  through 
with  those  medicines — the  pounding  and  the  pouring, 
and  the  letting  stand,  and  the  weighing — up  early  and 
down  late — there's  nobody  knows  yet  but  One  that's 
worthy  to  know;  and  the  pasting  o'  the  printed  labels 
right  side  upwards.  There's  few  women  would  have 
gone  through  with  it;  and  it's  reasonable  to  think  it'll 
he  made  up  to  me;  for  if  there's  promised  and  pur- 
chased blessings.  I  should  think  this  troble  is  purchasing 
'em.  For  if  my  son  Felix  doesn't  have  a  straight-waist- 
coat put  on  him,  he'll  have  his  way.  But  I  say  no  more. 
I  wish  you  good  morning,  Mr.  Lyon,  and  thank  you, 
though  I  well  know  it's  your  duty  to  act  as  you're  doing. 
And  I  never  troubled  you  about  my  own  soul,  as  some  do 
who  look  down  on  me  for  not  being  a  church  member." 

"Farewell,  Mistress  Holt,  farewell.  I  pray  that  a  more 
powerful  teacher  than  I  am  may  instruct  you." 

The  door  was  closed,  and  the  much-tried  Rufus  walked 
about  again,  saying  aloud  groaningly — 

•■'This  woman  has  sat  under  the  Gospel  all  her  life,  and 
she  is  as  blind  as  a  heathen,  and  as  proud  and  stitl-necked 
as  a  Pharisee;  yet  she  is  one  of  the  souls  I  watch  for. 
'Tis  true  that  even  Sara,  the  chosen  mother  of  God's 
people,  showed  a  spirit  of  unbelief,  and  perhaps  of  selfish 
anger;  and  it  is  a  passage  that  bears  the  unmistakable 
signet,  'doing  honor  to  the  wife  or  woman,  as  unto  the 
weaker  vessel.'  For  therein  is  the  greatest  check  put  on 
the  ready  scorn  of  the  natural  man." 


56  FELIX  HOLT, 


CHAPTEE   V. 

1st  Citizen.    Sir,  there's  a  hurry  in  the  veins  of  youth 
That  makes  a  vice  of  virtue  by  excess. 

2d  Citizen.     What  if  the  coolness  of  our  tardier  veins 
Be  loss  of  virtue  ? 

1st  Citizen.  All  things  cool  with  time— 

The  sun  itself,  they  say,  till  heat  shall  find 
A  general  level,  nowhere  in  excess. 

2d  Citizen.      'Tis  a  poor  climax,  to  my  weaker  thought, 
That  future  middlingness. 

Iisr  the  evening,  when  Mr.  Lyon  was  expecting  the  knock 
at  the  door  that  would  announce  Felix  Holt,  he  occupied 
his  cushionless  arm-chair  in  the  sitting-room,  and  was 
skimming  rapidly,  in  his  short-sighted  way,  by  the  light 
of  one  candle,  the  pages  of  a  missionary  report,  emitting 
occasionally  a  slight  •'  Hm-m"  that  appeared  to  be  express- 
ive of  criticism  rather  than  of  approbation.  The  room  was 
dismally  furnished,  the  only  objects  indicating  an  inten- 
tion of  ornament  being  a  bookcase,  a  map  of  the  Holy 
Land,  an  engraved  portrait  of  Dr.  Doddridge,  and  a  black 
bust  with  a  colored  face,  which  for  some  reason  or  other 
was  covered  with  green  gauze.  Yet  any  one  whose  attention 
was  quite  awake  must  have  been  aware,  even  on  entering, 
of  certain  things  tbat  were  incongruous  with  the  general 
air  of  sombreness  and  privation.  There  was  a  delicate  scent 
of  dried  rose-leaves;  the  light  by  which  the  minister  was 
reading  was  a  wax-candle  in  a  white  earthenware  candle- 
stick, and  the  table  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  fireplace 
held  a  dainty  work-basket  frilled  with  blue  satin. 

Felix  Holt,  wlien  he  entered,  was  not  in  an  observant 
mood;  and  when,  after  seating  himself,  at  the  minister's 
invitation,  near,  the  little  table  which  held  the  work- 
basket,  he  stared  at  the  wax-candle  opposite  to  him,  he 
did  so  without  any  wonder  or  consciousness  that  the 
candle  was  not  of  tallow.  But  the  minister's  sensitiveness 
gave  another  interpretation  to  the  gaze  which  he  divined 
rather  than  saw;  and  in  alarm  lest  this  inconsistent 
extravagance  should  obstruct  his  usefulness,  he  hastened 
to  say  — 

"  You  are  doubtless  amazed  to  see  me  with  a  wax -light, 
xn.j  young  friend;  but  this  undue  luxury  is  paid  for  with 
the  earnings  of  my  daughter,  who  is  so  delicately  framed 
that  the  smell  of  tallow" is  loathsome  to  her." 

"I  heeded  not-t-he  candle,  sir.  I  thank  Heaven  I  am 
not  .a  mouse  to  have  a  nose  that  takes  note  of  wax  or 
tallow." 


THE    RADICAL.  57 

The  loud  abrupt  tones  made  the  old  man  vibrate  a  little. 
He  had  been  stroking  his  chin  gently  before,  with  a  sense 
that  he  must  be  very  quiet  and  deliberate  in  his  treatment 
of  tlie  eccentric  young  man;  but  now,  quite  unreflectingly, 
he  drew  forth  a  pair  of  spectacles,  which  he  was  in  the 
habit  of  using  when  he  wanted  to  observe  his  interlocutor 
more  closely  than  usual. 

-'And  I  myself,  in  fact,  am  equally  indifferent,"  he 
said,  as  he  opened  and  adjusted  his  glasses,  "so  that  I 
have  a  sufficient  light  on  my  book."  Here  his  large  eyes 
looked  discerningly  through  the  spectacles. 

"'Tis  the  quality  of  the  page  you  care  about,  not  of  the 
candle,"  said  Felix,  smiling  pleasantly  enough  at  his 
inspector.  "You're  thinking  that  you  have  a  roughly- 
written  page  before  you  now." 

That  was  true.  The  minister,  accustomed  to  the  re- 
spectable air  of  provincial  townsmen,  and  especially  to 
the  sleek  well-clipped  gravity  of  his  own  male  congrega- 
tion, felt  a  slight  shock  as  his  glasses  made  perfectly  clear 
to  him  the  shaggy-headed,  large-eyed,  strong-limbed  person 
of  this  questionable  young  man,  without  waistcoat  or 
cravat.  But  the  possibility,  supported  by  some  of  Mrs. 
Holt's  words,  that  a  disguised  work  of  grace  might  be 
going  forward  in  the  son  of  whom  she  complained  so 
bitterly,  checked  any  hasty  interpretations. 

"I  abstain  from  judging  by  the  outward  appearance 
only,"  he  answered,  with  his  usual  simplicity.  "I  myself 
have  experienced  that  when  the  spirit  is  much  exercised 
it  is  difficult  to  remember  neck-bands  and  strings  and 
such  small  accidents  of  our  vesture,  Avhich  are  nevertheless 
decent  and  needful  so  long  as  we  sojourn  in  the  flesh. 
And  you,  too,  my  young  friend,  as  I  gather  from  your 
mother's  troubled  and  confused  report,  are  undergoing 
some  travail  of  mind.  You  will  not,  I  trust,  object  to 
open  yourself  fully  to  me,  as  to  an  aged  pastor  who  has 
himself  had  mucli  inward  wrestling,  and  has  especially 
known  much  temptation  from  doubt." 

"As  to  doubt,"  said  Felix,  loudly  and  brusquely  as 
before,  "  If  it  is  those  absurd  medicines  and  gulling  adver- 
tisements that  my  mother  has  been  talking  of  to  you — and 
I  suppose  it  is — I've  no  more  doubt  about  them  than  I  have 
about  pocket-picking.  I  know  there's  a  stage  of  specu- 
lation in  which  a  man  may  doubt  whether  a  pickpocket  is 
blameworthy — but  I'm  not  one  of  your  subtle  fellows  who 
keep  looking  at  the  world  through  their  own  legs.     If  I 


58  FELIX   HOLT, 

allowed  the  sale  of  those  medicines  to  go  on,  and  my 
mother  to  live  out  of  the  proceeds  when  I  can  keep  her  by 
the  honest  labor  of  my  hands,  Tve  not  the  least  doubt  that 
I  should  be  a  rascal. " 

"I  would  fain  inquire  more  jiarticularly  into  your 
objection  to  these  medicines,"  said  Mr.  Lyon,  gravely. 
Notwithstanding  his  conscientiousness  and  a  certain  origi- 
nality in  his  own  mental  disposition,  he  was  too  little  used 
to  high  principle  quite  dissociated  from  sectarian  phrase- 
ology to  be  as  immediately  in  sympathy  with  it  as  he  would 
otherwise  have  been.  "I  know  they  have  been  well 
reported  of,  and  many  wise  persons  have  tried  remedies 
providentially  discovered  by  those  who  are  not  regular 
jihysicians,  and  have  found  a  blessing  in  the  use  of  them. 
I  may  mention  the  eminent  Mr.  Wesley,  who,  though  I 
hold  not  altogether  with  his  Arminian  doctrine,  nor  with 
the  usages  of  his  institution,  was  nevertheless  a  man  of 
God;  and  the  journals  of  various  Christians  whose  names 
have  left  a  sweet  savor,  might  be  cited  in  the  same  sense. 
Moreover,  your  father,  who  originally  concocted  these 
medicines  and  left  them  as  a  provision  for  your  mother, 
was,  as  I  understand,  a  man  whose  walk  was  not  unfaith- 
ful." 

"My  father  was  ignorant,"  said  Felix,  bluntly.  "He 
knew  neither  the  complication  of  the  human  system,  nor 
the  way  in  which  drugs  counteract  each  other.  Ignorance 
is  not  so  damnable  as  humbug,  but  when  it  prescribes  pills 
it  may  happen  to  do  more  harm.  I  know  something  about 
these  things.  I  was  'prentice  for  five  miserable  years  to  a 
stupid  brute  of  a  country  apothecary — my  poor  father  left 
money  for  that — he  thought  nothing  could  be  finer  for  me. 
No  matter:  I  know  that  the  Cathartic  Pills  are  a  drastic 
compound  which  may  be  as  bad  as  poison  to  half  the 
people  who  swallow  them;  that  the  Elixir  is  an  absurd 
farrago  of  a  dozen  incompatible  things;  and  that  the 
Cancer  curejnightas  well  be  bottled  ditch-water." 

Mr.  Lyon  rose  and  walked  up  and  down  the  room.  His 
simplicity  was  strongly  mixed  with  sagacity  as  well  as  sec- 
tarian prejudice,  and  he  did  not  rely  at  once  on  a  loud- 
spoken  integrity — Satan  might  have  flavored  it  with  osten- 
tation. Presently  he  asked,  in  a  rapid,  low  tone,  "How 
long  have  you  known  this,  young  man?" 

"Well  put,  sir,"  said  Felix.  "Tve  known  it  a  good 
deal  longer  than  I  have  acted  upon  it,  like  plenty  of  other 
things.     But  you  believe  in  conversion?" 


THE   RADICAL.  59 

"Yea,  yerily/' 

"So  do  I.     I  was  converted  by  six  weeks'  debauchery." 

The  minister  started.  "  Young  man,"  he  said,  solemnly, 
going  up  close  to  Felix  and  laying  a  hand  on  his  shoulder, 
"speak  not  lightly  of  the  Divine  operations,  and  restrain 
unseemly  words." 

"I'm  not  speaking  lightly,"  said  Felix.  "If  I  had  not 
seen  that  I  was  making  a  hog  of  myself  very  fast,  and  that 
pig-wash,  even  if  I  could  have  got  plenty  of  it,  was  a  poor 
sort  of  thing,  I  should  never  have  looked  life  fairly  in  the 
face  to  see  what  was  to  be  done  with  it.  I  laughed  out 
loud  at  last  to  think  that  a  poor  devil  like  me,  in  a  Scotch 
garret,  with  my  stockings  out  at  heel  and  a  shilling  or  two 
to  be  dissipated  upon,  Avitli  a  smell  of  raw  haggis  mount- 
ing from  below,  and  old  women  breathing  gin  as  they  pass 
me  on  the  stairs — wanting  to  turn  my  life  into  easy 
pleasure.  Then  I  began  to  see  what  else  it  could  be  turned 
into.  Not  much,  perhaps.  This  world  is  not  a  very  fine 
place  for  a  good  many  of  the  people  in  it.  But  I've  made 
up  my  mind  it  shan't  be  the  worse  for  me,  if  I  can  help  it. 
They"may  tell  me  I  can't  alter  the  v/orld — that  there  must 
be  a  certain  number  of  sneaks  and  robbers  in  it,  and  if  I 
don't  lie  and  filch  somebody  else  will.  Well,  then,  some- 
body else  shall,  for  I  won't.  That's  the  upshot  of  my 
conversion,  Mr.  Lyon,  if  you  want  to  know  it." 

Mr,  Lyon  removed  his  hand  from  Felix's  shoulder  and 
walked  about  again.  "  Did  you  sit  under  any  preacher  at 
Glasgow,  young  man?" 

"No:  I  heard  most  of  the  preachers  once,  but  I  never 
wanted  to  hear  them  twice." 

The  good  Eufus  was  not  without  a  slight  rising  of 
resentment  at  tbis  young  man's  want  of  reverence.  It  was 
not  yet  plain  whether  he  wanted  to  hear  twice  the  preacher 
in  Malthouse  Yard.  But  the  resentful  feeling  was  care- 
fully repressed:  a  soul  in  so  peculiar  a  condition  must  be 
dealt  with  delicately. 

"And  now,  may  I  ask,"  he  said,  "what  course  you 
mean  to  take,  after  hindering  your  motlier  from  making 
and  selling  these  drugs?  I  speak  no  more  in  their  favor 
after  what  you  have  said.  God  forbid  that  I  should  strive 
to  hinder  you  from  seeking  whatsoever  things  are  honest 
and  honorable.  But  your  mother  is  advanced  in  years; 
she  needs  comfortable  sustenance;  you  have  doubtless  con- 
sidered how  you  may  make  her  amends?  'He  that  pro- 
videth    not   for  his   own '     I   trust  you   respect   the 


60  FELIX  HOLT, 

authority  that  so  speaks.  And  I  will  not  suppose  that, 
after  being  tender  of  conscience  toward  strangers,  you  will 
be  careless  toward  your  mother.  There  be  indeed  some 
who,  taking  a  mighty  charge  on  their  shoulder,  must  per- 
force leave  their  households  to  Providence,  and  to  the  care 
of  humbler  brethren,  but  in  such  a  case  the  call  must  be 
clear, " 

"'I  shall  keep  my  mother  as  well — nay,  better — than  she 
has  kept  herself.  She  has  always  been  frugal.  With  my 
watch  and  clock  cleaning,  and  teaching  one  or  two  little 
chaps  that  I've  got  to  come  to  me,  I  can  earn  enough.  As 
for  me,  I  can  live  on  bran  porridge.  I  have  the  stomach 
of  a  rhinoceros." 

"But  for  a  young  man  so  well  furnished  as  you,  who 
can  questionless  write  a  good  hand  and  keep  books,  were 
it  not  well  to  seek  some  higher  situation  as  clerk  or 
assistant?  I  could  speak  to  Brother  Muscat,  who  is  well 
acquainted  with  all  such  openings.  Any  place  in  Pen- 
drell's  Bank,  I  fear,  is  now  closed  against  such  as  are  not 
Churchmen.  It  used  not  to  be  so,  but  a  year  ago  he 
discharged  Brother  Bodkin,  although  he  was  a  valuable 
servant.  Still,  something  might  be  found.  There  are 
ranks  and  degrees  —  and  those  who  can  serve  in  the  higher 
must  not  unadvisedly  change  what  seems  to  be  a  provi- 
dential appointment.  Your  poor  mother  is  not  alto- 
gether  " 


"Excuse  me,  Mr.  Lyon;  Pve  had  all  that  out  with  my 
mother,  and  I  may  as  well  save  you  any  trouble  by  telling 
you  that  my  mind  has  been  made  up  about  that  a  long 
while  ago.  I'll  take  no  employment  that  obliges  me  to 
prop  up  my  chin  with  a  high  cravat,  and  wear  straps,  and 
]mss  the  livelong  day  with  a  set  of  fellows  who  spend  their 
spare  money  on  shirt-pins.  That  sort  of  work  is  really 
lower  than  many  handicrafts;  it  only  happens  to  be  paid 
out  of  proportion.  That's  why  I  set  myself  to  learn  the 
watchmaking  trade.  My  father  was  a  weaver  first  of  all. 
It  would  have  been  better  for  him  if  he  had  remained  a 
weaver.  I  came  home  through  Lancashire  and  saw  an 
uncle  of  mine  who  is  a  weaver  still.  I  mean  to  stick  to 
the  class  I  belong  to  —  people  who  don't  follow  the 
fashions." 

Mr.  Lyon  was  silent  a  few  moments.  This  dialogue  was 
far  from  plain  sailing;  he  was  not  certain  of  his  latitude 
and  longitude.  If  the  despiser  of  Glasgow  preachers  had 
been  arguing  in  favor  of  gin  and  Sabbath-breaking,  Mr. 


THE   RADICAL.  61 

Lyon's  course  would  have  been  clearer.  "  Well,  well/'  he 
said,  deliberately,  "it  is  true  that  St.  Paul  exercised  the 
trade  of  tent-making,  though  he  was  learned  in  all  the 
wisdom  of  the  Eabbis.'' 

"St.  Paul  was  a  wise  man,"  said  Felix.  "  Why  should 
I  want  to  get  into  the  middle  class  because  I  have  some 
learning?  The  most  of  the  middle  class  are  as  ignorant  as 
the  working  people  about  everything  that  doesn't  belong 
to  their  own  Brummagem  life.  That's  how  the  working 
men  are  left  to  foolish  devices  and  keep  worsening  them- 
selves: the  best  heads  among  them  forsake  their  born 
comrades,  and  go  in  for  a  house  with  a  high  door-step  and 
a  brass  knocker." 

Mr.  Lyon  stroked  his  mouth  and  chin,  perhaps  because 
he  felt  some  disposition  to  smile;  and  it  would  not  be  well 
to  smile  too  readily  at  what  seemed  but  a  weedy  resem- 
blance of  Christian  unworldliness.  On  the  contrary,  there 
might  be  a  dangerous  snare  in  an  unsanctified  outstepping 
of  average  Christian  practice. 

"Nevertheless,"  he  observed,  gravely,  "it  is  by  such 
self-advancement  that  many  have  been  enabled  to  do  good 
service  to  the  cause  of  liljerty  and  to  the  public  well- 
being.  The  ring  and  the  robe  of  Joseph  were  no  objects 
for  a  good  man's  ambition,  but  they  were  the  signs  of  that 
credit  which  he  won  by  his  divinely-inspired  skill,  and 
which  enabled  him  to  act  as  a  savior  to  his  brethren.'" 

"  Oh,  yes,  your  ringed  and  scented  men  of  the  people! — 
I  won't  be  one  of  them.  Let  a  man  once  throttle  himself 
with  a  satin  stock,  and  he'll  get  new  wants  and  new 
motives.  Metamorphosis  will  have  begun  at  his  neck- 
joint,  and  it  will  go  on  till  it  has  changed  his  likings  first 
and  then  his  reasoning,  which  will  follow  his  likings  as  the 
feet  of  a  hungry  dog  follow  liis  nose.  I'll  have  none  of 
your  clerkly  gentility.  I  might  end  by  collecting  greasy 
pence  from  noor  men  to  buy  myself  a  fine  coat  and  a  glut- 
ton's dinner,  on  pretense  of  serving  the  poor  men.  I'd 
sooner  be  Paley's  fat  pigeon  than  a  demagogue  all  tongue 
and  stomach,  though" — here  Felix  changed  his  voice  a 
little — "  I  should  like  well  enough  to  be  another  sort  of 
demagogue,  if  I  could." 

"Then  you  have  a  strong  interest  in  the  great  political 
movements  of  these  times?"  said  Mr.  Lj'on,  with  a  percep- 
tible flashing  of  the  eyes. 

"  I  should  think  so.  I  despise  every  man  who  has  wot— 
or,  having  it,  doesn't  try  to  rouse  it  in  other  men." 


62  FELIX  HOLT, 

"  Riglit,  my  young  friend,  right/'  said  tlie  minister,  in 
a  deep  cordial  tone.  Inevitably  his  mind  was  drawn  aside 
from  the  immediate  consideration  of  Felix  Holt's  spiritual 
interest  by  the  prosj)ect  of  political  sympathy.  In  those 
days  so  many  instruments  of  God's  cause  in  the  fight  for 
religious  and  political  liberty  held  creeds  that  were  pain- 
fully wrong,  and,  indeed,  irreconcilable  with  salvation! 
"That  is  my  own  view,  which  I  maintain  in  the  face  of 
some  opposition  from  brethren  who  contend  that  a  share  in 
public  movements  is  a  hindrance  to  the  closer  walk,  and 
that  the  pulpit  is  no  place  for  teaching  men  their  duties  ;is 
members  of  the  commonwealth.  I  have  had  much  puerile 
blame  cast  upon  me  because  I  have  uttered  such  names  as 
Brougham  and  Wellington  in  the  pulpit.  Why  not  Wel- 
lington as  well  as  Rabshakeh?  and  why  not  Brougham  as 
well  as  Balaam?  Does  God  know  less  of  men  than  He  did 
in  the  days  of  Hczekiah  and  Moses? — is  His  arm  shortened, 
.  vnd  is  the  world  become  too  wide  for  his  providence?  But, 
Jiey  say,  there  are  no  politics  in  the  New  Testament " 

''  Well,  they're  right  enough  there,"  said  Felix,  with  his 
usual  unceremoniousness. 

"  What!  you  are  of  those  who  hold  that  a  Christian  min- 
ister should  not  meddle  with  public  matters  in  the  pulpit?" 
said  Mr.  Lyon,  coloring.  "  I  am  ready  to  join  issue  on 
that  point.*' 

"  Not  I,  sir,"  said  Felix;  "  I  should  say,  teach  any  truth 
you  can,  whether  it's  in  the  Testament  or  out  of  it.  It's 
little  enough  anybody  can  get  hold  of,  and  still  less  wdiat 
he  can  drive  into  the  skulls  of  a  pence-counting,  parcel- 
tying  generation,  such  as  mostly  fill  your  chapels." 

'*  Young  man,"  said  Mr.  Lyon,  pausing  in  front  of  Felix. 
He  spoke  rapidly^  as  he  always  did,  except  when  his  words 
were  specially  weighted  with  emotion:  he  overflowed  with 
matter,  and*  in  his  mind  matter  was  always  completely 
organized  into  words.  "I  speak  not  on  my  own  behalf, 
for  not  only  have  I  no  desire  that  any  man  should  tbink 
of  me  above  that  which  he  seeth  me  to  be,  but  I  am 
aware  of  much  that  should  make  me  patient  under  a  dis- 
esteem  resting  even  on  too  hasty  a  construction.  I  speak 
not  as  claiming  reverence  for  my  own  age  and  office  —  not 
to  shame  you,  but  to  warn  you.  It  is  good  that  you  should 
use  plainness  of  speech,  and  I  am  not  of  those  who  M'ould 
enforce  a  submissive  silence  on  the  young,  that  they  them- 
selves, being  elders,  may  be  heard  at  large;  for  Elihu  was 
the  youngest  of  Job's  friends,  yet  was  there  a  wise  rebuke 


THE    RADICAL.  63 

in  his  words;  and  tlie  aged  Eli  was  tauglit  by  a  revelation 
to  the  boy  Samuel.  I  have  to  keep  a  special  watch  over 
myself  in  this  matter,  inasmuch  as  I  have  a  need  of  utter- 
ance  which  makes  the  thought  within  me  seem  as  a  pent- 
up  five,  until  I  have  shot  it  forth,  as  it  Avere,  in  arrowy 
words,  each  one  hitting  its  mark.  Therefore  I  pray  for  a 
listening  spirit,  which  is  a  great  mark  of  grace.  Neverthe- 
less, my  young  friend,  I  am  bound,  as  I  said,  to  warn  you. 
The  temptations  that  most  beset  those  who  have  great 
natural  gifts,  and  are  wise  after  the  flesh,  are  pride  and 
scorn,  more  particularly  toward  those  weak  things  of  the 
world  Avhich  have  been  chosen  to  confound  the  things 
which  arc  mighty.  The  scornful  nostril  and  the.  high 
head  gather  not  the  odors  that  lie  on  the  track  of  truth. 
The  mind  that  is  too  ready  at  contempt  and  reprobation 
is " 

Her<3  the  door  opened,  and  Mr.  Lyon  paused  to  look 
around,  but  seeing  only  Lyddy  with  the  tea-tray,  he  went 
on  — 

"  Is,  I  may  say,  as  a  clenched  fist  that  can  give  blows, 
but  is  shut  up  from  receiving  and  holding  aught  that  is 
precious  —  though  it  were  heaven-sent  manna."' 

"I  understand  you,  sir,"  said  Felix,  good-humoredly, 
putting  out  his  hand  to  the  little  man,  who  had  come 
close  to  him  as  he  delivered  the  last  sentence  Avith  sudden 
emphasis  and  sloAvness.  "But  I'm  not  inclined  to  clench 
my  fist  at  you." 

"Well,  well," said  Mr.  Lyon,  shaking  the  proffered  hand, 
"  we  shall  see  more  of  each  other,  and  I  trust  shall  haA'e 
much  profitable  communing.  You  will  stay  and  have  a 
dish  of  tea  with  us:  we  take  the  meal  late  on  Thursdays, 
because  my  daughter  is  detained  by  giving  a  lesson  in  the 
French  tongue.  But  she -is  doubtless  returned  now,  and 
Avill  ])resently  come  and  pour  out  tea  for  us." 

"Thank  you,  I'll  stay,"  said  Felix,  not  from  any  curi- 
osity to  see  the  minister's  daughter,  but  from  a  liking  for 
the  society  of  the  minister  himself  —  for  his  quaint  looks 
and  ways,  and  the  transparency  of  his  talk,  which  gave  a 
charm  even  to  his  weaknesses.  The  daughter  was  prob- 
ably some  prim  Miss,  neat,  sensible,  pious,  but  all  in  a 
small  feminine  way,  in  which  Felix  was  no  more  interested 
than  in  Dorcas  meetings,  biographies  of  devout  women, 
and  that  amount  of  ornamental  knitting  Avhich  Avas  not 
inconsistent  Avith  ]N^onconformi ng  seriousness. 

"I'm  perhaps  a  little  too  fond  of  banging  and  smash- 


64  FELIX   HOLT, 

ing,"  he  went  on;  ''  a,  phrenologist  at  Ghisgow  told  me  I 
had  large  veneration;  another  man  there,  who  knew  me, 
laughed  out  and  said  I  was  the  most  hlasphemous  icono- 
clast living.  'That/  says  my  phrenologist,  'is  because  of 
his  large  Ideality,  which  prevents  him  from  finding  any- 
thing perfect  enough  to  be  venerated/  Of  course  I  put 
my  ears  down  and  wagged  my  tail  at  that  stroking." 

"Yes,  yes;  I  have  had  my  own  head  explored  with 
somewhat  similar  results.  It  is,  I  fear,  but  a  vain  show  of 
fulfilling  the  heathen  precept,  '  Know  thyself,''  and  too 
often  leads  to  a  self-estimate  which  will  subsist  in  the 
absence  of  that  fruit  by  which  alone  the  quality  of  the 

tree  is  made  evident.     Nevertheless Esther,  my  dear, 

this  is  Mr.  Holt,  whose  acquaintance  I  have  now  been 
making  with  more  than  ordinary  interest.  He  will  take 
tea  with  us. 


}> 


Esther  bowed  slightly  as  she  walked  across  the  room  to 
fetch  the  caudle  and  place  it  near  her  tray.  Felix  rose 
and  bowed,  also  with  an  air  of  indifference,  Avhich  was 
perhaps  exaggerated  by  the  fact  that  he  was  inwardly  sur- 
prised. The  minister's  daughter  was  not  the  sort  of  per- 
son he  expected.  She  was  quite  incongruous  with  his 
notion  of  ministers'  daughters  in  general;  and  though  he 
had  expected  something  nowise  delightful,  the  incongruity 
repelled  him.  A  very  delicate  scent,  the  faint  suggestion 
of  a  garden,  was  wafted  as  she  went.  He  would  not 
obsgrve  her,  but  he  had  a  sense  of  an  elastic  walk,  the 
tread  of  small  feet,  a  long  neck  and  a  high  crown  of  shin- 
ing brown  plaits  with  curls  that  floated  backward — things, 
in  short,  that  suggested  a  fine  lady  to  him,  aud  determined 
him  to  notice  her  as  little  as  possible.  A  fine  lady  was 
always  a  sort  of  spun-glass  affair — not  natural,  and  with  no 
beauty  for  him  as  art;  but  a  fine  lady  as  the  daughter  of 
this  rusty  old  Puritan  was  especially  offensive. 

"Nevertheless,"  continued  Mr.  Lyon,  who  rarely  let 
drop  any  thread  of  discourse,  "t3iat  phrenological  science 
is  not  irreconcilable  with  the  revealed  dispensations.  And 
it  is  undeniable  that  we  have  our  varying  native  disposi- 
tions which  even  grace  will  not  obliterate*  I  myself,  from 
my  youth  up,  have  been  given  to  question  too  curiously 
concerning  the  truth  —  to  examine  and  sift  the  medicine 
of  the  soul  rather  than  to  apply  it." 

"If  your  truth  happens  to  be  such  medicine  as  Holt's 
Pills  and  Elixir,  the  less  you  swallow-  of  it  the  better, '^ 
said  Felix.      ' '  But  truth-vendors  and  medicine-vendors 


THE   RADICAL.  65 

usually  recommend  swallowing.  When  a  man  sees  his  live- 
lihood in  a  pill  or  a  proposition,  he  likes  to  have  orders  for 
the  dose,  and  not  curious  inquiries." 

This  speech  verged  on  rudeness,  but  it  was  delivered 
with  a  brusque  openness  that  implied  the  absence  of  any 
personal  intention.  The  minister's  daughter  was  now  for 
the  first  time  startled  into  looking  at  Felix.  But  her  sur- 
vey of  this  unusual  speaker  was  soon  made,  and  she 
relieved  her  father  from  the  need  to  reply  by  saying — 

*'The  tea  i*s  j)oured  out,  father." 

That  was  the  signal  for  Mr.  Lyon  to  advance  toward  the 
table,  raise  his  right  hand,  and  ask  a  blessing  at  sufficient 
length  for  Esther  to  glance  at  the  visitor  again.  There 
seemed  to  be  no  danger  of  his  looking  at  her:  he  was 
observing  lier  father.  She  had  time  to  remark  that  he  was 
a  j)eculiar  looking  person,  but  not  insignificant,  which  was 
the  quality  that  most  hopelessly  consigned  a  man  to  per- 
dition. He  was  massively  built.  The  striking  points  in 
his  face  Avere  large  clear  gray  eyes  and  full  lips. 

"Will  you  draw  up  to  the  table,  Mr.  Holt?"  said  the 
minister. 

In  the  act  of  rising,  Felix  pushed  back  his  chair  too 
suddenly  against  the  rickety  table  close  by  him,  and  down 
went  the  blue-frilled  work-basket,  flying  open,  and  dispers- 
ing on  the  floor  reels,  thimble,  muslin-work,  a  small  sealed 
bottle  of  atta  of  rose,  and  something  heavier  than  these — 
a  duodecimo  volume  which  fell  close  to  him  between  the 
table  and  the  fender. 

"Oh,  my  stars!"  said  Felix,  "I  beg  your  pardon." 
Esther  had  already  started  up,  and  with  wonderful  quick- 
ness had  picked  up  half  the  small  rolling  things  while 
Felix  was  lifting  the  basket  and  the  book.  This  last  had 
opened,  and  had  its  leaves  crushed  in  falling;  and,  with 
the  instinct  of  a  bookish  man,  he  saw  nothing  more 
pressing  to  be  done  than  to  flatten  the  corners  of  the 
leaves. 

"Byron^s  Poems!"  he  said,  in  a  tone  of  disgust,  while 
Esther  was  recovering  all  the  other  articles.  "'The 
Dream' — he'd  better  have  been  asleep  and  snoring. 
What!  do  you  stuff  vour  memory  with  Byron,  Mies 
Lyon?" 

Felix,  on  his  side,  was  led  at  last  to  look  straight  at 
Esther,  but  it  was  Avith  a  strong  denunciatory  and  peda- 
goric  intention.     Of  course  he  saw  more  clearly  than  ever 
that  she  was  a  tine  ladv. 
5 


6G  FELIX   HOLT, 

She  reddened,  drew  up  her  long  neck,  and  said,  as  felie 
retreated  to  her  chair  again — 

''I  have  a  great  admiration  for  Byron/' 

Mr.  Lyon  had  paused  in  the  act  of  drawing  his  chair  to 
the  tea-table,  and  was  looking  on  at  this  scene,  wrinkling 
the  corners  of  his  eyes  with  a  perplexed  smile.  Esther 
would  not  have  wished  him  to  know  anything  about  the 
volume  of  Byron,  but  she  was  too  proud  to  show  any 
concern. 

"  He  is  a  worldly  and  vain  writer,  I  fear,"  said  Mr. 
Lyon.  He  knew  scarcely  anything  of  the  poet,  whose 
books  embodied  the  faith  and  ritual  of  many  young  ladies 
and  gentlemen. 

"A  misanthropic  debauchee,''  said  Felix,  lifting  a  chair 
with  one  hand,  and  holding  the  book  open  in  the  other, 
"whose  notion  of  a  hero  was  that  he  should  disorder  his 
stomach  and  despise  mankind.  His  corsairs  and  renegades, 
his  Alps  and  Manfreds,  are  the  most  paltry  puppets  that 
were  ever  pulled  by  the  strings  of  lust  and  pride." 

"Hand  the  book  to  me,"  said  Mr.  Lyon. 

"  Let  me  beg  of  you  to  put  it  aside  till  after  tea, 
father,"  said  Esther.  "  However  objectionable  Mr.  Holt 
may  find  its  pages,  they  would  certainly  be  made  worse  by 
being  greasecf  with  bread-and-butter." 

"That  IS  true,  my  dear,"  said  Mr.  Lyon,  laying  down 
the  book  on  the  small  table  behind  him.  He  saw  that  his 
daughter  was  angry. 

"Ho,  ho!"  thought  Felix,  "her  father  is  frightened  at 
lier.  How  came  he  to  have  such  a  nice-stepping,  long- 
necked  peacock  for  his  daughter?  but  she  shall  see  that  I 
am  not  frightened."  Then  he  said  aloud,  "I  should  like 
to  know  how  you  will  Justify  your  admiration  for  such  a 
writer.  Miss  Lyon." 

"I  should  not  attempt  it  with  you,  Mr.  Holt,"  said 
Esther.  "  You  have  such  strong  words  at  command  that 
they  make  the  smallest  argument  seem  formidable.  It  I 
had  ever  met  the  giant  Cormoran,  I  should  luive  made  a 
point  of  agreeing  with  him  in  his  literary  opinions." 

Esther  had  that  excellent  thing  in  woman,  a  soft  voice 
with  clear  fluent  utterance.  Her  sauciness  was  always 
charming  because  it  was  witliout  emphasis,  and  was  accom- 
panied with  graceful  little  turns  of  the  head. 

Felix  laughed  at  her  thrust  with  young  heartiness. 

"  My  daughter  is  a  critic  of  words,  Mr.  Holt,"  said  the 
minister,  smiling  complacently,  "and  often  corrects  mine 


THE   EADICAL.  67 

on  the  ground  of  niceties,  which  I  profess  are  as  dark  to 
me  as  if  they  were  the  reports  of  a  sixth  sense  which  I 
possess  not,  I  am  an  eager  seeker  for  precision,  and  would 
fain  find  language  subtle  enough  to  follow  the  utmost 
intricacies  of  the  soul's  pathways,  but  I  see  not  why  a 
round  word  that  means  some  object,  made  and  blessed  by 
the  Creator,  should  be  branded  and  banished  as  a  male- 
factor." 

"  Oh,  your  niceties — I  know  what  they  are,"  said  Felix, 
in  his  \\&\v2i\  fortissimo.  "They  all  go  on  your  system  of 
make-believe.  'Eottenness'  may  suggest  what  is  unpleas- 
;mt,  so  you'd  better  say  'sugar-plums,'  or  something  else 
such  a  long  way  ofE  the  fact  that  nobody  is  obliged  to 
think  of  it.  Those  are  your  roundabout  euphuisms  that 
dress  up  swindling  till  it  looks  as  well  as  honesty,  and  shoot 
with  boiled  peas  instead  of  bullets.  I  hate  your  gentle- 
manly sj)eakers." 

"Then  you  would  not  like  Mr.  Jermyn,  I  think,"  said 
Esther.  "That  reminds  me,  father,  that  to-day,  Avhen  I 
was  giving  Miss  Louisa  Jermyn  her  lesson,  Mr.  Jermyn 
came  in  and  spoke  to  me  with  grand  politeness,  and  asked 
me  at  what  times  you  were  likely  to  be  disengaged,  because 
he  wished  to  make  your  better  acquaintance,  and  consult 
you  on  matters  of  importance.  He  never  took  the  least 
notice  of  me  before.  Can  you  guess  the  reason  of  his 
sudden  ceremoniousuess?" 

"  Nay,  child,"  said  the  minister,  ponder ingiy. 

"Politics,  of  course," said  Felix.  "He's  on  some  com- 
mittee. An  election  is  coming.  Universal  peace  is 
declared,  and  the  foxes  have  a  sincere  interest  in  pro- 
longing the  lives  of  the  poultry.  Eh,  Mr.  Lyon?  Isn't 
that  it?" 

"  Nay,  not  so.  Ho  is  the  close  ally  of  the  Transonic 
family,  who  arc  blind  hereditary  Tories  like  the  Debarrys, 
and  will  drive  their  tenants  to  the  ]ioll  as  if  they  were 
sheep,  and  it  has  even  been  hinted  that  the  heir  who  is 
coming  from  the  East  may  be  another  Tory  candidate,  and 
coalesce  Avith  the  younger  Debarry.  It  is  said  that  he  h;is 
enormous  wealth,  and  could  purchase  every  vote  in  the 
county  that  has  a  price." 

'"He  is  come,"  said  Esther.  "I  heard  Miss  Jermyn 
tell  her  sister  that  she  had  seen  him  going  out  of  her  father's 
room," 

"'Tis  strange,"  said  ]\Ir,  Lyon, 

"  Something  extraordinary  must  have  happened,"  said 


68  FELIX   HOLT, 

Esther,  ''for  Mr.  Jermyn  to  intend  courting  us.  Miss 
Jermyn  said  to  me  only  the  other  day  that  she  could  not 
think  how  I  came  to  be  so  well  educated  and  ladylike. 
She  always  thought  Dissenters  were  ignorant,  vulgar  peo- 
ple. I  said.  So  they  were,  usually,  and  Church  peoi^le 
also  in  small  towns.  She  considers  herself  a  judge  of 
what  is  ladylike,  and  she  is  vulgarity  personified — vv'ith 
large  feet,  and  the  most  odious  scent  on  her  handkerchief, 
and  a  bonnet  that  looks  like  '  The  Fashion '  printed  in 
capital,  letters.'^ 

"One  sort  of  fine  ladyism  is  as  good  as  another,'"  said 
Felix. 

"No,  indeed.  Pardon  me,"  said  Esther.  "Arealfin^- 
lady  does  not  wear  clothes  that  flare  in  people's  eyes,  or 
use  importunate  scents,  or  make  a  noise  as  she  moves:  she 
is  something  refined  and  graceful,  and  charming,  and  never 
obtrusive." 

"Oh,  yes,"  said  Felix,  contemptuously.  "And  she 
reads  Byron  also,  and  admires  Childe  Harold — gentlemen 
of  unspeakable  woes,  who  employ  a  hairdresser,  and  look 
seriously  at  themselves  in  the  glass." 

Esther  reddened,  and  gave  a  little  toss.  Felix  went  on 
triumphantly.  "A  fine  lady  is  a  squirrel-headed  thing, 
with  small  airs,  and  small  notions,  about  as  applicable  to 
the  business  of  life  as  a  pair  of  tweezers  to  the  clearing  of 
a  forest.  Ask  your  father  what  those  old  persecuted  emi- 
grant Puritans  would  have  done  with  fine-lady  wives  and 
daughters." 

"Oh,  there  is  no  danger  of  such  mesalliances,"  said 
Esther.  "  Men  who  are  unpleasant  companions  and  make 
frights  of  themselves,  are  sure  to  get  wives  tasteless  enough 
to  suit  them." 

"Esther,  my  dear,"  said  Mr.  Lyon,  "let  not  your  play- 
fulness betray  you  into  disrespect  toward  those  venerable 
pilgrims.  They  struggled  and  endured  in  order  to  cherish 
and  plant  anew  the  seeds  of  scriptural  doctrine  and  of  a 
pure  discipline." 

"Yes,  I  know,"  said  Esther,  hastily,  dreading  a  dis- 
course on  the  pilgrim  fathers. 

"Oh,  they  were  an  ugly  lot!"  Felix  burst  in,  making 
Mr.  Lyon  start.  "Miss  Medora  wouldn't  have  minded  if 
they  had  all  been  put  into  the  pillory  and  lost  their  ears. 
She  would  have  said,  'Their  ears  did  stick  out  so.'  I 
shouldn't  wonder  if  that's  a  bust  of  one  of  them."    Here 


THE    EADICAL.  69 

Felix,  with  sudden  keenness  of  observation,  nodded  at  the 
black  bust  with  the  gauze  over  its  colored  face. 

"No,"  said  Mr.  Lyon;  "that  is  the  eminent  George 
Whitfield,  who,  you  well  knoAv,  had  a  gift  of  oratory  as  of 
one  on  whom  the  tongue  of  flame  had  rested  visibly!!  But 
Providence — doubtless  for  wise  ends  in  relation '  to  the 
inner  man,  for  I  would  not  inquire  too  closely  into  minu- 
tia?  which  carry  too  many  plausible  interpretations  for  any 
one  of  them  to  be  stable — Providence,  I  say,  ordained  that 
the  good  man  should  squint;  and  my  daughter  has  not  yet 
learned  to  bear  with  this  infirmity." 

"  She  has  put  a  veil  over  it.  Suppose  you  had  squintetl 
yourself?"  said  Felix,  looking  at  Esther.^ 

"  Then,  doubtless,  you  could  have  been  more  polite  to 
me,  Mr.  Holt,"  said  Esther,  rising  and  placing  herself  at 
her  work-table.  "  You  seem  to  ]3refer  what  is  unusual 
and  ugly." 

"A  peacock!"  thought  Felix.  " I  should  like  to  come 
and  scold  her  every  day,  and  make  her  crv  and  cut  her  fine 
hair  off." 

Felix  rose  to  go,  and  said,  "I  will  not  take  up  any  more 
of  your  valuable  time,  Mr.  Lyon.  I  know  that  you  have 
not  many  spare  evenings." 

"  That  is  true,  my  young  friend;  for  I  now  go  to  Sprox- 
ton  one  evening  in  the  week.  I  do  not  despair  that  we 
may  some  day  need  a  chapel  there,  though  the  hearers  do 
not  multiply  save  among  the  v/omen,  and  there  is  no  work 
as  yet  begun  among  the  miners  themselves.  I  shall  be 
glad  of  your  company  in  my  walk  thither  to-morrow  at 
five  o'clock,  if  you  would  like  to  see  how  that  population 
has  grown  of  late  years." 

"Oh,  I've  been  to  Sproxton  already  several  times.  I 
had  a  congregation  of  my  own  there  last  Sunday  evening." 

"What!  do  you  preach?"  said  Mr.  Lyon,  with  bright- 
ened glance. 

"Not  exactly.     I  went  to  the  ale-house." 

Mr.  Lyon  started.  "I  trust  you  are  putting  a  riil- 
dle  to  me,  young  man,  even  as  Samson  did  to  his  compan- 
ions. From  Avhat  you  said  but  lately,  it  cannot  be  that 
you  are  given  to  tippling  and  to  taverns." 

"  Oh,  I  don't  drink  much.  I  order  a  pint  of  beer,  and 
[  get  into  talk  with  the  fellows  over  their  pots  and  pipes. 
Somebody  must  take  a  little  knowledge  and  common-sense 
to  them  in  this  way,  else  liow  are  they  to  get  it?  I  go  for 
educating  the  non-electors,  so  I  put  mj^self  in  the  way  of 


70  FELIX   HOLT, 

my  pupils — my  academy  is  the  beer-house.  Fll  walk  with 
you  to-morrow  Avitli  great  pleasure." 

"Do so,  do  so,"  said  Mr.  Lyon,  shaking  hands  with  his 
odd  acquaintance.  ''We  shall  understand  each  other  bet- 
ter by-and-by,  I  doubt  not." 

"I  wish  you  good  evenklg,  Miss  Lyon." 

Esther  bowed  very  slightly,  without  speaking. 

"  That  is  a  singular  young  man,  Estber,"  said  the  min- 
ister, walking  about  after  Felix  was  gone.  "I  discern  in 
him  a  love  for  whatsoever  things  are  honest  and  true, 
which  I  would  fain  believe  to  be  an  earnest  of  further 
endowment  with  the  wisdom  that  is  from  on  high.  It  is 
true  that,  as  the  traveler  in  the  desert  is  often  lured,  by  a 
false  vision  of  water  and  freshness,  to  turn  aside  from  the 
track  which  leads  to  the  tried  and  established  fountains, 
so  the  Evil  One  will  take  advantage  of  a  natural  yearning 
toward  the  better,  to  delude  the  soul  with  a  self-flattering 
belief  in  a  visionary  virtue,  higher  than  the  ordinar}^  fruits 
of  the  S23irit.  But  I  trust  it  is  not  so  here.  I  feel  a  great 
enlargement  in  this  young  man's  presence,  notwithstand- 
ing a  certain  license  in  his  language,  which  I  shall  use  my 
efforts  to  correct." 

"I  think  he  is  very  coarse  and  rude,"  said  Esther,  with 
a  touch  of  temper  in  her  voice.  "  But  he  speaks  better 
English  than  most  of  our  visitors.  What  is  his  occu- 
pation ?  " 

"Watch  and  clock  making,  by  which,  together  with  a 
little  teaching,  as  I  understand,  he  hopes  to  maintain  his 
mother,  not  thinking  it  right  that  she  should  live  by  the 
sale  of  medicines  whose  virtues  he  distrusts.  It  is  no  com- 
mon scruple." 

"  Dear  me,"  said  Esther,  "  I  thought  he  Avas  something 
higher  than  that."     She  was  disappointed. 

Felix,  on  his  side,  as  he  strolled  out  in  the  evening  air, 
said  to  himself:  "  Now  by  what  fine  meshes  of  circum- 
stance did  that  queer  devout  old  man,  with  his  awful 
creed,  which  makes  this  world  a  vestibule  with  double 
doors  to  hell,  and  a  narrow  stair  on  one  side  whei-eby 
the  thinner  sort  may  mount  to  heaven  —  by  what  subtle 
play  of  flesh  and  spirit  did  he  come  to  have  a  daughter  so 
little  in  his  own  likeness?  Married  foolishly,  I  suppose. 
Ill  never  marry,  though  I  should  have  to  live  on  raw  tur- 
nips to  subdue  my  flesh.  I'll  never  look  back  and  say,  '1 
had  a  fine  purpose  once — I  meant  to  keep  my  hands  clean 
and  my  soul  upright,  and  to  look  truth  in  the  face;  but 


THE   EADICAL.  71 

pray  excuse  me,  I  have  a  wife  and  cliildren  —  I  must  lie 
and  simper  a  little,  else  they'll  starve';  or  ^My  Avife  is 
nice,  she  must  have  her  bread  well  buttered,  and  her  feel- 
ings will  be  hurt  if  she  is  not  thought  genteel.'  That  is 
the  lot  Miss  Esther  is  preparing  for  some  man  or  other.  I 
could  grind  my  teeth  at  such  self-satisfied  minxes,  who 
think  they  can  tell  everybody  what  is  the  correct  thing, 
and  the  utmost  stretch  of  their  ideas  will  not  place  them 
on  a  level  with  the  intelligent  fleas.  I  should  like  to  see 
if  she  could  be  made  ashamed  of  herself.'^ 


CHAPTER  VI. 


Though  she  be  dead,  yet  let  me  think  she  lives. 
And  feed  my  mind,  that  dies  for  want  of  her. 

Marlowe  :  Tamburlaine  the  Great. 

Hardly  any  one  in  Treby  who  thought  at  all  of  Mr. 
Lyon  and  his  daughter  had  not  felt  the  same  sort  of  wonder 
about  Esther  as  Felix  felt.  She  was  not  much  liked  by 
her  father's  church  and  congregation.  The  less  serious 
observed  that  she  had  too  many  airs  and  graces,  and  held 
her  head  much  too  high;  the  stricter  sort  feared  greatly 
that  Mr.  Lyon  had  not  been  sufficiently  careful  in  placing 
his  daughter  among  God-fearing  people,  and  that,  being 
led  astray  by  the  melancholy  vanity  of  giving  her  excep- 
tional accomplishments,  he  had  sent  her  to  a  French 
school,  and  allowed  her  to  take  situations  where  she  had 
contracted  notions  not  only  above  her  own  rank,  but  of  too 
worldly  a  kind  to  be  safe  in  any  rank.  But  no  one  knew 
what  sort  of  a  woman  her  mother  had  been,  for  Mr.  Lyon 
never  spoke  of  his  past  domesticities.  When  he  was 
chosen  as  pastor  at  Treby  in  1825,  it  was  understood 
that  he  hud  been  a  widower  many  years,  and  he  had 
no  companion  but  the  tearful  and  much-exercised  Lyddy, 
his  daughter  being  still  at  school.  It  was  only  two  years 
ago  that  Esther  had  come  homo  to  live  ])ermanently  witli 
her  father,  and  take  pupils  in  tlie  town.  Within  that 
time  she  had  excited  a  passion  in  two  young  Dissenting 
breasts  that  were  clad  in  the  best  style  of  Treby  waist- 
coat—  a  garment  which  at  .that  period  displayed  mucli 
design  both  in  the  stuff  and  tlie  wearer;  and"  she  had 
secured  an  astonished  admiration  of  her  cleverness  from 


73  FELIX   HOLT, 

the  girls  of  various  ages  who  were  her  pupils;  indeed,  her 
knowledge  of  French  was  generally  held  to  give  a  distinc- 
tion to  Treby  itself  as  compared  with  other  market-towns. 
But  she  had  won  little  regard  of  any  other  kind.  Wise 
Dissenting  matrons  were  divided  between  fear  lest  their 
sons  should  want  to  marry  her  and  resentment  that  she 
should  treat  those  "undeniable"  young  men  with  a  distant 
scorn  which  was  hardly  to  be  tolerated  in  a  minister's 
daughter;  not  only  because  that  parentage  appeared  to 
entail  an  obligation  to  show  an  exceptional  degree  of 
Christian  humility,  but  because,  looked  at  from  a  secular 
point  of  view,  a  poor  minister  must  be  below  the  sub- 
stantial householders  who  kept  him.  For  at  that  time 
the  preacher  who  was  paid  under  the  Voluntary  system 
was  regarded  by  his  flock  with  feelings  not  less  mixed 
than  the  spiritual  j^erson  who  still  took  his  tithe-pig 
or  his  modus.  His  gifts  were  admired,  and  tears  were 
shed  under  best  bonnets  at  his  sermons;  but  the  weaker 
tea  was  thought  good  enough  for  him;  and  even  when  he 
went  to  preach  a  charity  sermon  in  a  strange  town,  he  was 
treated  with  home-made  wine  and  the  smaller  bedroom. 
As  the  good  Churchman's  reverence  was  often  mixed  with 
growling,  and  was  apt  to  be  given  chiefly  to  an  abstract 
parson  who  was  what  a  parson  ought  to  be,  so  the  good 
Dissenter  sometimes  mixed  his  approval  of  ministerial 
gifts  with  considerable  criticism  and  cheapening  of  the 
human  vessel  Avhich  contained  those  treasures.  Mrs. 
Muscat  and  Mrs.  ISTuttwood  applied  the  principle  of 
Christian  equality  by  remarking  that  Mr.  Lyon  had  his 
oddities,  and  that  he  ought  not  to  allow  his  daughter  to 
indulge  in  such  unbecoming  expenditure  on  her  gloves, 
shoes,  and  hosiery,  even  if  she  did  pay  for  them  out  of 
her  earnings.  As  for  the  Church  people  who  engaged 
Miss  Lyon  to  give  lessons  in  their  families,  their  imagina- 
tions were  altogether  prostrated  by  the  incongruity  be- 
tween accomplishments  and  Dissent,  between  weekly 
prayer-meetings  and  a  conversance  with  so  lively  and  alto- 
gether worldly  a  language  as  the  French.  Esther's  own 
mind  was  not  free  from  a  sense  of  irreconcilableness  be- 
tween the  objects  of  her  taste  and  the  conditions  of  her 
lot.  She  knew  that  Dissenters  were  looked  down  upon 
by  those  whom  she  regarded  as  the  most  refined  classes; 
her  favorite  companions,  both  in  France  and  at  an 
English  school  where  she  had  been  a  junior  teacher, 
•lad   thought   it  quite   ridiculous  to   have  a   father  who 


THE   RADICAL.  73 

was  a  Dissenting  preacher;  and  when  an  ardently  admir- 
ing school-fellow  induced  her  jaarents  to  take  Esther 
as  a  governess  to  the  younger  children,  all  her  native 
tendencies  toward  luxury,  fastidiousness,  and  scorn  of 
mock  gentilit}^,  were  strengthened  by  witnessing  the 
habits  of  a  well-born  and  wealthy  family.  Yet  the 
position  of  servitude  was  irksome  to  her,  and  she  was 
glad  at  last  to  live  at  home  with  her  father,  for  thougli, 
throughout  her  girlhood,  she  had  wished  to  avoid  this  lot, 
a  little  experience  had  taught  her  to  prefer  its  comparative 
independence.  But  she  was  not  contented  with  her  life: 
she  seemed  to  herself  to  be  surrounded  with  ignoble,  unin- 
teresting conditions,  from  which  there  was  no  issue;  for 
even  if  she  had  been  unamiable  enough  to  give  her  father 
pain  deliberately,  it  would  have  been  no  satisfaction  to  her 
to  go  to  Treby  church,  and  visibly  turn  her  back  on  Dis- 
sent. It  was  not  religious  differences,  but  social  differ- 
ences, that  Esther  was  concerned  about,  and  her  ambitions 
taste  would  have  been  no  more  gratified  in  the  society 
of  the  Waces  than  in  that  of  the  Muscats.  The  Waces 
spoke  imperfect  English  and  played  whist;  the  Muscats 
spoke  the  same  dialect  and  took  in  the  "Evangelical  Mag- 
azine." Esther  liked  neither  of  these  amusements.  She 
had  one  of  those  exceptional  organizations  Avhich  are  quick 
and  sensitive  without  being  in  the  least  morbid;  she  was 
alive  to  the  finest  shades  of  manner,  to  the  nicest  distinc- 
tions of  tone  and  accent;  she  had  a  little  code  of  her  own 
about  scents  and  colors,  textures  and  behavior,  by  which 
she  secretly  condemned  or  sanctioned  all  things  and  per- 
sons. And  she '  was  well  satisfied  with  herself  for  her 
fastidious  taste,  never  doubting  that  hers  was  the  highest 
standard.  She  was  proud  that  the  best-born  and  hand- 
somest girls  at  school  had  always  said  that  she  might  be 
taken  for  a  born  lady.  Her  own  pretty  instep,  clad  in  a 
silk  stocking,  her  little  heel,  just  rising  from  a  kid  slipper, 
her  irreproachable  nails  and  delicate  wrist,  were  the  objects 
of  delighted  consciousness  to  her;  and  she  felt  that  it  was 
her  superiority  which  made  her  unable  to  use  without  dis- 
gust any  but  the  finest  cambric  handkerchiefs  and  freshest 
gloves.  Her  money  all  Avent  in  tlic  gratification  of  these 
nice  tastes,  and  she  saved  nothing  from  her  earnings.  I 
cannot  say  that  she  had  any  pangs  of  conscience  on  this 
score;  for  she  felt  sure  that  she  was  generous:  she  hated 
all  meanness,  would  empty  her  purse  impulsively  on  some 
sudden  appeal  to  her  pity,  and  if  she  found  out  that  her 


74  FELIX   HOLT, 

father  had  a  want,  she  would  sujiply  it  with  some  pretty 
device  of  a  surprise.  But  then  the  good  man  so  seldom 
had  a  want — except  the  perpetual  desire,  Avhich  she  could 
never  gratify,  of  seeing  her  under  convictions,  and  fit  to 
become  a  member  of  the  church. 

As  for  little  Mr.  Lyon,  he  loved  and  admired  this 
unregenerate  child  more,  he  feared,  than  was  consistent 
with  the  due  preponderance  of  impersonal  and  ministerial 
regards:  he  prayed  and  pleaded  for  her  with  tears,  hum- 
bling himself  for  her  spiritual  deficiencies  in  the  privacy  of 
his  study;  and  then  came  down  stairs  to  find  himself  in 
timorous  subjection  to  her  wishes,  lest,  as  he  inwardly 
said,  he  should  give  his  teaching  an  ill  savor,  by  mingling 
it  M'itli  outward  crossing.  There  will  be  queens  in  spite  of 
Salic  or  other  laAvs  of  later  date  than  Adam  and  Eve;  and 
here,  in  this  small  dingy  house  of  the  minister  in  Malt- 
house  Yard,  there  was  a  light-footed,  sweet-voiced  Queen 
Esther. 

The  stronger  will  always  rule,  say  some,  with  an  air  of 
confidence  which  is  like  a  lawyer's  flourish,  forbidding 
exceptions  or  additions.  But  what  is  strength?  Is  it 
blind  willfulness  that  sees  no  terrors,  no  many -linked  con- 
sequences, no  bruises  and  wounds  of  those  whose  cords  it 
tightens?  Is  it  the  narrov»^ness  of  a  brain  that  conceives 
no  needs  differing  from  its  own,  and  looks  to  no  results 
beyond  the  bargains  of  to-day;  that  tugs  with  emphasis 
for  every  small  purjDose,  and  thinks  it  weakness  to  exercise 
the  sublime  power  of  resolved  renunciation?  There  is  a 
sort  of  subjection  which  is  the  peculiar  heritage  of  large- 
ness and  of  love;  and  strength  is  often  only  another  name 
for  willing  bondage  to  irremediable  weakness. 

Esther  had  affection  for  her  father:  she  recognized  the 
purity  of  his  character,  and  a  quickness  of  intellect  in  him 
which  responded  to  her  own  liveliness,  in  spite  of  what 
seemed  a  dreary  piety,  which  selected  everything  that  was 
least  interesting  and  romantic  in  life  and  history.  But 
his  old  clothes  had  a  smoky  odor,  and  she  did  not  like  to 
walk  with  him,  because,  when  people  spoke  to  him  in  the 
street,  it  was  his  wont,  instead  of  remarking  on  the  weather 
and  passing  on,  to  pour  forth  in  an  absent  manner  some 
reflections  that  were  occupying  his  mind  about  the  traces 
of  the  Divine  government,  or  about  a  peculiar  incident 
narrated  in  the  life  of  the  eminent  JNIr.  Kichard  Baxter. 
Esther  had  a  horror  of  appearing  ridiculous  even  in  the 
eyes  of  vulgar  Trebians.     She  fancied  that  she  should  have 


THE   RADICAL.  75 

loved  her  mother  hetter  than  she  was  ahle  to  love  her 
father;  and  she  wished  she  could  have  remembered  that 
mother  more  thoroughly. 

But  she  had  no  more  than  a  broken  vision  of  the  time 
l^iefore  she  was  five  years  old — the  time  when  the  word 
oftenest  on  her  lips  was  "  Mamma";  when  a  low  voice  spoke 
caressing  French  words  to  her,  and  slie  in  lier  turn  repeated 
the  words  to  her  rag  doll;  when  a  very  small  white  hand, 
different  from  any  that  came  after,  iised  to  pat  her,  and 
stroke  her,  and  tie  on  her  frock  and  pinafore,  and  when  at 
last  there  was  notliing  but  sitting  with  a  doll  on  a  bed 
where  mamma  was  lying,  till  her  father  once  carried  her 
away.  Where  distinct  memory  began,  there  was  no  longer 
the  low  caressing  voice  and  the  small  white  hand.  She 
knew  that  her  mother  was  a  Frenchwoman,  that  she  had 
been  in  want  and  distress,  and  that  her  maiden  name  was 
Annette  Ledru.  Her  father  had  told  her  no  more  than 
this;  and  once,  in  her  childhood,  when  she  had  asked  him 
some  question,  he  had  said,  "My  Esther,  until  you  are  a 
woman,  we  will  only  think  of  your  mother:  when  you  are 
about  to  be  married  and  leave  me,  we  will  speak  of  her, 
and  I  will  deliver  to  you  her  ring  and  all  that  was  hers; 
but,  without  a  great  command  laid  upon  me,  I  cannot 
pierce  my  heart  by  speaking  of  that  which  Avas  and  is  not." 
Esther  had  never  forgotten  these  words,  and  the  older  she 
became,  the  more  impossible  she  felt  it  that  she  should 
urge  her  father  with  questions  about  the  past. 

His  inability  to  speak  of  that  past  to  her  depended  on 
manifold  causes.  Partly  it  came  from  an  initial  conceal- 
ment. He  had  not  the  courage  to  tell  Esther  that  he 
was  not  really  her  father:  he  had  not  the  courage  to 
renounce  that  hold  on  her  tenderness  which  the  belief  in 
his  natural  fatherhood  must  help  to  give  him,  or  to  incur 
any  resentment  that  her  quick  spirit  might  feel  at  having 
ijcen  brought  up  under  a  false  supposition.  But  there  were 
other  things  yet  more  difficult  for  him  to  be  quite  open 
about  —  deep  sorrows  of  his  life  as  a  Christian  minister 
that  were  hardly  to  be  told  to  a  girl. 

Twenty-two  years  before,  when  Rufus  Lyon  was  no  more 
than  thirty-six  years  old,  he  was  the  admired  pastor  of  a 
large  Independent  congregation  in  one  of  our  southerly 
seaport  towns.  He  was  unmarried,  and  had  met  all  exhor- 
tations of  frientls  who  represented  to  him  that  a  bishop  — 
/,  e.,  the  overseer  of  an  Independent  church  and  congrega- 
tion—  should  be  the  liusband  of  one  wife,  by  saying  that 


70  FELIX   HOLT, 

St.  Paul  meant  this  particular  as  a  limitation,  and  not  as 
an  injunction;  that  a  minister  was  permitted  to  have  one 
wife,  but  that  he,  Rufus  Lyon,  did  not  wish  to  avail  him- 
self of  that  permission,  finding  his  studies  and  other  labors 
of  his  vocation  all-absorbing,  and  seeing  that  mothers  in 
Israel  were  sufficiently  provided  by  those  who  had  not  been 
set  ajsart  for  a  more  special  work.  His  church  and  con- 
gregation were  proud  of  him:  he  was  put  forward  on 
platforms,  was  made  a  ''  deputation,"  and  was  requested 
to  preach  anniversary  sermons  in  far-off  towns.  Wherever 
noteworthy  preachers  were  discussed,  Rufus  Lyon  was 
almost  sure  to  be  mentioned  as  one  who  did  honor  to  the 
Independent  body;  his  sermons  were  said  to  be  full  of 
study,  yet  full  of  fire;  and  Avhile  he  had  more  of  human 
knowledge  than  many  of  his  brethren,  he  showed  in  an 
eminent  degree  the  marks  of  a  true  ministerial  vocation. 
But  on  a  sudden  this  burning  and  shining  light  seemed  to 
be  quenched:  Mr.  Lyon  voluntarily  resigned  his  charge 
and  withdrew  from  the  town. 

A  terrible  crisis  had  come  upon  him;  a  moment  in  which 
religious  doubt  and  newly-awakened  passion  had  rushed 
together  in  a  common  flood,  and  had  paralyzed  his  minis- 
terial gifts.  His  life  of  thirty-six  years  had  been  a  story  of 
purely  religious  and  studious  fervor;  his  passion  had  been 
for  doctrines,  for  argumentative  conquest  on  the  side  of 
right;  the  sins  he  had  had  chiefly  to  pray  against  had  been 
those  of  personal  ambition  (under  such  forms  as  ambition 
takes  in  the  mind  of  a  man  who  has  chosen  the  career  of 
an  Independent  preacher),  and  those  of  a  too  restless 
intellect,  ceaselessly  urging  questions  concerning  the  mys- 
tery of  that  which  was  assuredly  revealed,  and  thus 
hindering  the  due  nourishment  of  the  soul  on  the  sub- 
stance of  the  truth  delivered.  Even  at  that  time  of 
comparative  youth,  his  unworldliness  and  simplicity  in 
small  matters  (for  he  was  keenly  awake  to  the  larger 
affairs  of  this  world)  gave  a  certain  oddity  to  his  manners 
and  appearance;  and  though  his  sensitive  face  had  much 
beauty,  his  person  altogether  seemed  so  irrelevant  to  a 
fashionable  view  of  things,  that  well-dressed  ladies  and 
gentlemen  usually  laughed  at  him,  as  they  probably  did  at 
Mr.  John  Milton  after  the  Restoration  and  ribbons  had 
come  in,  and  still  more  at  that  apostle,  of  weak  bodily 
presence,  who  preached  in  the  back  streets  of  Ephesus  and 
elsewhere,  a  new  view  of  a  religion  that  hardly  anybody 
believed  in.     Rufus  Lyon  was  the  singular-looking  apostle 


THE   RADICAL.  77 

of  the  Meeting  in  Skipper's  Lane.  Was  it  likely  that  any 
romance  should  befall  such  a  man?  Perhaps  not;  but 
romance  did  befall  him. 

One  winter's  evening  in  1812,  Mr.  Lyon  was  returning 
from  a  village  preaching.  He  walked  at  his  usual  rapid 
rate,  with  busy  thoughts  undistracted  by  any  sight  more 
distinct  than  the  bushes  and  the  hedgerow"  trees,  black 
beneath  a  faint  moonlight,  until  something  suggested  to 
him  that  he  had  perhaps  omitted  to  bring  away  with  him 
a  thin  account-book  in  which  he  recorded  certain  subscrip- 
tions. He  paused,  unfastened  his  outer  coat,  and  felt  in 
all  his  jiockets,  then  he  took  off  his  hat  and  looked  inside 
it.  The  book  was  not  to  be  found,  and  he  was  about  to 
walk  on,  when  he  was  startl-ed  by  hearing  a  low,  sweet  voice 
say,  with  a  strong  foreign  accent — 

"  Have  pity  on  me,  sir." 

Searching  with  his  short-sighted  eyes,  he  pei'ceived  some 
one  on  a  side-bank;  and  approaching,  he  found  a  young 
woman  with  a  baby  on  her  lap.  She  spoke  again  more 
faintly  than  before. 

"  Sir,  I  die  with  hunger;  in  the  name  of  God  take  the 
little  one." 

There  was  no  distrusting  the  pale  face  and  the  sweet 
low  voice.  Without  pause,  Mr.  Lyon  took  the  baby  in  his 
arms  and  said,  "  Can  you  walk  by  my  side,  young  woman?" 

She  rose,  but  seemed  tottering.  "Lean  on  me,"  said 
Mr.  Lyon,  and  so  they  walked  slowly  on,  the  minister  for 
the  first  time  in  his  life  carrying  a  baby. 

Nothing  better  occurred  to  him  than  to  take  his  charge 
to  his  own  house*  it  was  the  simplest  way  of  relieving  the 
woman's  wants,  and  finding  out  how  she  could  be  helped 
further;  and  he  thought  of  no  other  possibilities.  She 
was  too^  feeble  for  more  words  to  be  spoken  between  them 
till  she  was  seated  by  his  fireside.  His  elderly  servant  was 
not  easily  amazed  at  anything  her  master  did  in  the  way 
of  charity,  and  at  once  took  the  baby,  while  Mr.  Lyon 
unfastened  the  mother's  damp  bonnet  and  shawl,  and  gave 
her  something  warm  to  drink.  Then,  waiting  by  her  till 
it  was  time  to  offer  her  more,  he  had  nothing  to  do  but  to 
notice  the  loveliness  of  her  face,  which  seemed  to  him  as 
that  of  an  angel,  with  a  benignity  in  its  repose  that  carried 
a  more  assured  sweetness  than  any  smile.  Gradually  she 
revived,  lifted  up  her  delicate  hands  between  her  face  and 
the  firelight;  and  looked  at  the  baby  which  lay  opposite  to 
her  on  the  old  servant's  lap,  taking  in  spoonfuls  with  much 


78  FELIX    HOLT, 

content,  and  stretching  out  naked  feet  toward  the  warmth. 
Then,  as  her  consciousness  of  relief  grew  into  contrasting 
memory,  she  lifted  up  her  eyes  to  Mr.  Lyon,  who  stood 
close  by  her,  and  said,  in  her  pretty  broken  way — 

"I  knew  you  had  a  good  heart  when  you  took  your  hat 
off.  You  seemed  to  me  as  the  image  of  the  bi&n-aime 
Saint  Jean." 

The  grateful  glance  of  those  blue-gray  eyes,  with  their 
long  shadow-making  eyelashes,  was  a  new  kind  of  good 
to  Rufus  Lyon;  it  seemed  to  him  as  if  a  woman  had  never 
really  looked  at  him  before.  Yet  this  poor  thing  was 
apparently  a  blind  French  Catholic — of  delicate  nurture, 
surely,  judging  from  her  hands.  He  was  in  a  tremor;  he 
felt  that  it  would  be  rude  to  question  her,  and  he  only 
urged  her  now  to  take  a  little  food.  She  accepted  it  with 
evident  enjoyment,  looking  at  the  child  continually,  and 
then,  with  a  fresh  burst  of  gratitude,  leaning  forward  to 
press  the  servant's  hand  and  say,  "Oh,  you  are  good!" 
T^'hen  she  looked  up  at  Mr.  Lyon  again  and  said,  *'Is  there 
in  the  world  a  prettier  marmot  f" 

The  evening  passed;  a  bed  was  made  up  for  the  strange 
woman,  and  Mr.  Lyon  had  not  asked  her  so  much  as  her 
name.  He  never  went  to  bed  himself  that  night.  He 
spent  it  in  misery,  enduring  a  horrible  assault  of  Satan. 
He  thought  a  frenzy  had  seized  him.  Wild  visions  of  an 
impossible  future  thrust  themselves  upon  him.  He  dreaded 
lest  the  woman  had  a  husband;  he  wished  that  he  might 
call  her  his  own,  that  he  might  worship  her  beauty,  that 
she  might  love  and  caress  him.  And  what  to  the  mass  of 
men  would  have  been  only  one  of  many  allowable  follies — 
a  transient  fascination,  *to  be  dispelled  by  daylight  and 
contact  with  those  common  facts  of  which  common  sense 
is  the  reflex — was  to  him  a  spiritual  convulsion.  He  was 
as  one  who  raved,  and  knew  that  he  raved.  These  mad 
wishes  were  irreconcilable  with  what  he  was,  and  must  be, 
as  a  Christian  minister,  nay,  penetrating  his  soul  as  tropic 
heat  penetrates  the  frame,  and  changes  for  it  all  a&pects 
and  all  flavors,  they  were  irreconcilable  with  that  con- 
ception of  the  world  which  made  his  faith.  All  the  busy 
doubt  which  had  before  been  mere  impish  shadows  flitting 
around  a  belief  that  was  strong  with  the  strength  of  an 
unswerving  moral  bias,  had  now  gathered  blood  and  sub- 
stance. The  questioning  spirit  had  become  suddenly  bold 
and  blasphemous;  it  no  longer  insinuated  skepticism — it 
prompted  defiance;  it  no  longer  expressed  cool,  inquisitive 


THE    RADICAL.  79 

thought,  but  was  the  voice  of  a  passionate  mood.  Yet  he 
never  ceased  to  regard  it  as  the  voice  of  the  tempter:  the 
conviction  which  had  been  the  law  of  his  better  life 
remained  within  him  as  a  conscience. 

The  struggle  of  that  night  was  an  abridgment  of  all  the 
struggles  that  came  after.  Quick  souls  have  their  intensest 
life  in  the  first  anticipatory  sketch  of  what  may  or  will  be, 
and  the  pursuit  of  their  wish  is  the  pursuit  of  that  para- 
disiacal vision  which  only  impelled  them,  and  is  left  farther 
and  farther  beliind,  vanishing  forever  even  out  of  hope  in 
the  moment  which  is  called  success. 

The  next  morning  Mr.  hjon  heard  his  guest's  history. 
She  was  the  daughter  of  a  French  officer  of  considerable 
rank,  who  had  fallen  in  the  Eussian  campaign.  8he  had 
escaped  from  France  to  England  with  much  difficulty  in 
order  to  rejoin  her  husband,  a  young  Englishman,  to  whom 
she  had  become  attached  during  his  detention  as  a  prisoner 
of  war  on  parole  at  Vesoul,  where  she  was  living  under 
the  charge  of  some  relatives,  and  to  whom  she  had  been 
married  without  the  consent  of  her  family.  Her  husband 
had  served  in  the  Hanoverian  army,  had  obtained  his 
discharge  in  order  to  visit  England  on  some  business,  Avitli 
the  nature  of  Avhich  she  was  not  acquainted,  and  had  been 
taken  prisoner  as  a  suspected  spy.  A  short  time  after 
their  marriage  he  and  his  fellow-prisoners  had  been  moved 
to  a  town  nearer  the  coast,  and  she  had  remained  in 
wretched  uncertainty  about  him,  until  at  last  a  letter  had 
come  from  him  telling  her  that  an  exchange  of  prisoners 
had  occurred,  that  he  was  in  England,  that  she  must  use 
licr  utmost  effort  to  follow  him,  and  that  on  arriving  on 
English  ground  she  must  send  him  word  under  a  cover 
which  he  enclosed,  bearing  an  address  in  London.  Fear- 
ing the  opposition  of  her  friends,  she  started  unknown  to 
them,  with  a  very  small  supply  of  money;  and  after  endur- 
ing much  discomfort  and  many  fears  m  Avaiting  for  a 
passage,  which  she  at  last  got  iii  a  small  trading  smack, 
she  arrived  at  Southampton  —  ill.  Before  she  was  able 
to  write,  her  baby  was  born;  and  before  her  husband's 
answer  came,  she  had  been  obliged  to  ])awn  some  clothes 
and  trinkets.  He  desired  her  to  travel  to  London  wliere 
he  would  meet  her  at  the  Belle  Sauvage,  adding  that  he 
was  himself  in  distress,  and  unable  to  come  to  her:  when 
once  she  was  in  London  thev  would  take  ship  and  quit  the 
country.  Arrived  at  the  Belle  Sauvage,  the  poor  thing 
waited  three  davs  in  vain  for  her  husband:  on  the  fourth 


80  FELIX    HOLT, 

a  letter  came  in  a  strange  hand,  saying  that  in  his  last 
moments  he  had  desired  this  letter  to  be  written  to  inform 
her  of  his  death,  and  recommend  her  to  return  to  her 
friends.  She  could  choose  no  otlier  course,  but  she  had 
soon  been  reduced  to  walking,  that  she  might  save  her 
pence  to  buy  bread  with;  and  on  the  evening  when  she 
made  her  appeal  to  Mr.  Lyon,  she  had  pawned  the  last 
thing,  over  and  above  needful  clothing,  that  she  could 
persuade  herself  to  part  with.  The  things  she  had  not 
borne  to  part  with  were  her  marriage-ring,  and  a  locket 
containing  her  husband's  hair,  and  bearing  his  baptismal 
name.  This  locket,  she  said,  exactly  resembled  one  worn 
by  her  husband  on  his  Avatch-chain,  only  that  his  bore  the 
name  Annette,  and  contained  a  lock  of  her  hair.  The 
precious  trifle  now  hung  round  her  neck  by  a  cord,  for  she 
had  sold  the  small  gold  chain  which  formerly  held  it. 

The  only  guarantee  of  this  story,  besides  the  exquisite 
candor  of  her  face,  was  a  small  packet  of  papers  which  she 
carried  in  her  pocket,  consisting  of  her  husband's  few 
letters,  the  letter  which  announced  his  death,  and  her 
marriage  certificate.  It  was  not  so  probable  a  story  as 
that  of  many  an  inventive  vagrant;  but  Mr.  Lyon  did  not 
doubt  it  for  a  moment.  It  was  impossible  to  him  to  sus- 
pect this  angelic-faced  woman,  but  he  had  strong  sus- 
picions concerning  her  husband.  He  could  not  help  being 
glad  that  she  had  not  retained  the  address  he  had  desired 
her  to  send  to  in  London,  as  that  removed  any  obvious 
means  of  learning  particulars  about  him.  But  inquiries 
might  have  been  made  at  Yesoul  by  letter,  and  her  friends 
there  might  have  been  appealed  to.  A  consciousness,  not 
to  be  quite  silenced,  told  Mr.  Lyon  that  this  was  the 
course  he  ought  to  take,  but  it  Avould  have  required  an 
energetic  self-conquest,  and  he  was  excused  from  it  by 
Annette's  own  disinclination  to  return  to  her  relatives, 
if  any  other  acceptable  possibility  could  be  found. 

He  dreaded,  with  a  violence  of  feeling  which  sur- 
mounted all  struggles,  lest  anything  should  take  her  away, 
and  place  such  barriers  between  them  as  would  make  it 
unlikely  or  impossible  that  she  should  ever  love  him  well 
enough  to  become  his  wife.  Yet  he  saw  with  perfect 
clearness  that  unless  he  tore  up  this  mad  passion  by  the 
roots,  his  ministerial  usefulness  would  be  frustrated,  and 
the  repose  of  his  soul  would  be  destroyed.  This  woman 
was  an  unregenerate  Catholic;  ten  minutes'  listening  to 
her  artless  talk  made  that  plain  to  him :  even  if  her  posi- 


THE    RADICAL.  *  81 

tion  had  been  less  equivocal,  to  unite  himself  to  such  a 
woman  was  nothing  less  than  a  spiritual  fall.  It  was 
already  a  fall  that  he  had  wished  there  was  no  high  pur- 
pose to  which  he  owed  an  allegiance — that  he  had  longed 
to  fly  to  some  backwoods  where  there  was  no  church  to 
reproach  him,  and  Avhere  he  might  have  this  sweet  woman 
to  wife,  and  know  the  joys  of  tenderness.  Those  sensi- 
bilities which  in  most  lives  are  diffused  equally  through 
the  youthful  years,  were  aroused  suddenly  in  Mr.  Lyon,  as 
some  men  have  their  special  genius  revealed  to  them  by  a 
tardy  concurrence  of  conditions.  His  love  was  the  first 
love  of  a  fresh  young  heart  full  of  wonder  and  worship. 
But  what  to  one  man  is  the  virtue  which  he  has  sunk 
below  the  possibility  of  aspiring  to,  is  to  another  the  back- 
sliding by  which  he  forfeits  his  spiritual  crown. 

The  end  was,  that  Annette  remained  in  his  house.  He 
had  striven  against  himself  so  far  as  to  represent  her 
position  to  some  chief  matrons  in  his  congregation,  pray- 
ing and  yet  dreading  that  they  would  so  take  her  by  the 
hand  as  to  impose  on  him  that  denial  of  his  own  longing 
not  to  let  her  go  out  of  his  sight,  which  he  found  it  too 
hard  to  impose  on  himself.  But  they  regarded  the  case 
coldly:  the  woman  was,  after  all,  a  vagrant.  Mr.  Lyon 
was  observed  to  be  surprisingly  weak  on  the  subject — his 
eagerness  seemed  disproportionate  and  unbecoming;  and 
this  young  Frenchwoman,  unable  to  express  herself  very 
clearly,  was  uo  more  interesting  to  those  matrons  and 
their  liusbauds  than  other  pretty  young  women  suspi- 
ciously circumstanced.  They  were  willing  to  subscribe 
something  to  carry  her  on  her  way,  or  if  she  took  some 
lodgings  they  would  give  her  a  little  sewing,  and  endeavor 
to  convert  her  from  Papistry.  If,  however,  she  was  a 
respectable  person,  as  she  said,  the  ouly  proper  thing  for 
her  was  to  go  back  to  her  own  country  and  friends.  In 
spite  of  himself,  Mr.  Lyon  exulted.  There  seemed  a 
reason  now  that  he  should  keep  Annette  under  his  own 
eyes.  He  told  himself  that  no  real  object  would  be  served 
by  his  providing  food  and  lodging  for  her  elsewhere — an 
expense  which  he  could  ill  afford.  And  she  was  appar- 
ently so  helpless,  except  as  to  the  one  task  of  attending 
to  her  baby,  that  it  would  have  been  folly  to  thmk  of  her 
exerting  herself  for  her  own  support. 

But  this  course  of  hts  was  severely  disapproved  by  his 
church.     There  were*  vaiious  signs  that  the  minister  was 
under  some  evil  influence:  his  preaching  wanted  its  old 
6 


83  FELIX   HOLT, 

fervor,  he  seemed  to  shun  the  intercourse  of  his  brethren, 
and  very  mournful  suspicions  were  entertained.  A  formal 
remonstrance  was  presented  to  him,  but  he  met  it  as  if  he 
had  already  determined  to  act  in  anticipation  of  it.  He 
admitted  that  external  circumstances,  conjoined  Avith  a 
|)eculiar  state  of  mind,  were  likely  to  hinder  the  fruitful 
exercise  of  his  ministry,  and  he  resigned  it.  Tliere  was 
much  sorrowing,  much  expostulation,  but  he  declared  that 
for  the  i)resent  he  was  unable  to  unfold  himself  more  fully; 
he  only  wished  to  state  solemnly  that  Annette  Ledru,  though 
blind  in  spiritual  things,  was  in  a  worldly  sense  a  joure  and 
virtuous  woman.  No  more  was  to  be  said,  and  he  departed 
to  a  distant  town.  Here  he  maintained  himself,  Annette 
and  tiie  child,  with  the  remainder  of  Jiis  stipend,  and  with 
the  wages  he  earned  as  a  printer^s  reader.  Annette  was 
one  of  those  angelic-faced  helpless  women  who  take  all 
things  as  manna  from  heaven:  the  good  image  of  the  well- 
beloved  Saint  John  wished  her  to  stay  with  him,  and  there 
was  nothing  else  that  she  wished  for  except  the  unattain- 
able. Yet  for  a  whole  year  Mr.  Lyon  never  dared  to  tell 
Annette  that  he  loved  her:  he  trembled  before  this  woman; 
he  saw  that  the  idea  of  his  being  her  lover  was  too  remote 
from  her  mind  for  her  to  have  any  idea  that  she  ought  not 
to  live  with  him.  She  had  never  known,  never  asked  the 
reason  why  he  gave  uj)  his  ministry.  She  seemed  to  enter' 
tain  as  little  concern  about  the  strange  world  in  which  she 
lived  as  a  bird  in  its  nest:  an  avalanche  had  fallen  over  the 
past,  but  she  sat  warm  and  uncrushed — there  was  food  for 
many  morrows,  and  her  baby  flourished.  She  did  not  seem 
even  to  care  about  a  priest,  or  about  having  her  child  bap- 
tized; and  on  the  subject  of  religion  Mr.  Lyon  was  as  timid, 
and  shrank  as  much  from  speaking  to  her,  as  on  the  subject 
of  his  love.  He  dreaded  anything  that  might  cause  her  to 
feel  a  sudden  repulsion  toward  him.  He  dreaded  disturb- 
ing her  simple  gratitude  and  content.  In  these  days  his 
religious  faith  was  not  slumbering;  it  was  awake  and  achingly 
conscious  of  having  fallen  in  a  struggle.  He  had  had  a  great 
treasure  committed  to  him,  and  had  flung  it  away:  he  held 
himself  a  backslider.  His  unbelieving  thoughts  never  gained 
the  full  ear  and  consent  of  his  soul.  His  prayers  had  been 
stifled  by  the  sense  that  there  was  something  he  preferred  to 
complete  obedience;  they  had  ceased  to  be  anything  but 
intermittent  cries  and  confessions,  and  a  submissive  pre- 
sentiment, rising  at  times  even  to  gm  entreaty,  that  some 
great  discipline  might  come,  that  the  dull  spiritual  sense 


THE   EADICAL.  83 

might  be  roused  to  full  vision  and  hearing  as  of  okl,  and 
the  supreme  facts  become  again  supreme  in  his  soul.  Mr. 
Lyon  will  perhaps  seem  a  very  simple  personage,  with  piti- 
ably narrow  theories;  but  none  of  our  theories  are  quite 
kiYge  enough  for  all  the  disclosures  of  time,  and  to  the  end 
of  men's  struggles  a  penalty  will  remain  for  those  who  sink 
from  the  ranks  of  the  heroes  into  the  crowd  for  whom  the 
iicroes  fight  and  die. 

One  day,  however,  Annette  learned  Mr.  Lyon's  secret. 
The  baby  had  a  tooth  coming,  and  being  large  and  strong 
now,  was  noisily  fretful.  Mr.  Lyon,  though  he  had  been 
working  extra  hours  and  was  much  in  need  of  repose,  took 
the  child  from  its  mother  immediately  on  entering  the 
house  and  walked  about  with  it,  patting  and  talking  sooth- 
ingly to  it.  The  stronger  grasj),  the  new  sensations,  were 
a  successful  anodyne,  and  baby  went  to  sleep  on  his  shoul- 
der. But  fearful  lest  any  movement  should  disturb  it,  he 
sat  down,  and  endured  the  bondage  of  holding  it  still 
against  his  shoulder. 

"You  do  nurse  baby  well,"  said  Annette,  approvingly. 
"  Yet  you  never  nursed  before  I  came?" 

"No,"  said  Mr.  Lyon.     "  I  had  no  brothers  and  sisters." 

"Why  were  you  not  married?"  Annette  had  never 
thought  of  asking  that  question  before. 

"  Because  I  never  loved  any  woman — till  now.  I  thought 
I  should  never  marry.     Now  I  wish  to  marry." 

Annette  started.  She  did  not  see  at  once  that  she  was 
the  Avoman  he  Avanted  to  marry;  what  had  flashed  on  her 
mind  was,  that  there  might  be  a  great  change  in  Mr. 
Lyon's  life.  It  was  as  if  the  lightning  had  entered  into 
her  dream  and  half  awaked  her. 

"Do  you  think  it  foolish,  Annette,  that  I  should  wish 
to  marry?" 

"  I  did  not  expect  it,"  she  said,  doubtfully.  "I  did  not 
know  you  thought  about  it." 

"You  know  the  woman  I  should  like  to  marry?" 

"I  know  her?"  she  said,  interrogatively,  blushing 
deeply. 

"It  is  you,  Annette — you  whom  I  have  loved  better 
than  my  duty.     I  forsook  everything  for  you." 

Mr.  Lyon  paused:  he  Avas  about  to  do  what  he  felt  would 
be  ignoble — to  urge  what  seemed  like  a  claim. 

"Can  you  love  me.  Annette?  AVill  you  be  my  Avife?" 
Annette  trembled  and  looked  mij^erable. 

"Do  not  sjieak — forget  it,"  said  Mr.  Lyon,  rising  sud- 


^4  FELIX   HOLT, 

denly  and  speaking  with  loud  energy.     "^No,  no — I  do  not 
want  it — I  do  not  wish  it/' 

The  baby  awoke  as  he  started  up;  he  gave  the  child  into 
Aiinette's  arms,  and  left  her. 

His  work  took  him  away  early  the  next  morning  and  the 
next  again.  They  did  not  need  to  speak  much  to  each 
other.  The  third  day  Mr.  Lyon  was  too  ill  to  go  to  work. 
His  frame  had  been  overwrought;  he  had  been  too  poor  to 
have  sufficiently  nourishing  food,  and  under  the  shattering 
of  his  long  deferred  hope  his  health  had  given  away. 
They  had  no  regular  servant — only  occasional  help  from 
an  old  woman,  who  lit  the  fires  and  put  on  the  kettles. 
Annette  was  forced  to  be  the  sick-nurse,  and  this  sudden 
demand  on  her  shook  away  some  of  her  torpor.  The  illness 
was  a  serious  one,  and  the  medical  man  one  day  hearing 
Mr.  Lyon  in  his  delirium  raving  with  an  astonishing 
fluency  in  Biblical  language,  suddenly  looked  round  with 
increased  curiosity  at  Annette,  and  asked  if  she  were  the 
sick  man's  wife,  or  some  other  relative. 

"jSTo — no  relation,"  said  Annette,  shaking  her  head, 
*^He  has  been  good  to  me." 

"How  long  have  you  lived  with  him?" 

"More  than  a  year." 

"Was  he  a  preacher  once?" 

"  Yes." 

"When  did  he  leave  off  being  a  preacher?'' 

'-'  Soon  after  he  took  care  of  me." 

"Is  that  his  child?" 

"Sir,"  said  Annette,  coloring  indignantly,  "I  am  a 
^'idow." 

The  doctor,  she  thought,  looked  at  her  oddly,  but  he 
asked  no  more  questions. 

When  the  sick  man  was  getting  better,  and  able  to  enjoy 
invalid's  food,  he  observed  one  day,  while  he  was  taking 
some  broth,  that  Annette  was  looking  at  him;  he  paused 
to  look  at  her  in  return,  and  was  struck  with  a  new 
expression  in  her  face,  quite  distinct  from  the  merely  pas- 
sive sweetness  which  usually  characterized  it.  She  laid 
ner  little  hand  on  his,  which  was  now  transparently  thin,^ 
and  said,  "I  am  getting  very  wise;  I  have  sold  some  of 
the  books  to  make  money— the  doctor  told  me  where;  and 
I  have  looked  into  the  shops  v/here  they  sell  caps  and  bon- 
nets and  pretty  things,  and  I  can  do  all  that,  and  get  more 
money  to  keep  us.  And  when  you  are  well  enough  to  get 
up,  we  will  go  out  and  be  married — shall  we  not?    See! 


THE    RADICAL.  85 

and  la  petite"  (the  baby  had  never  been  named  anything 
else)  "shall  call  you  Papa — and  then  we  shall  never  part." 

Mr.  Lvon  trembled.  This  illness — something  else,  per- 
haps— had  made  a  great  change  in  Annette.  A  fortnight 
after  that  they  were  married.  The  day  before  he  had 
ventured  to  ask  her  if  she  felt  any  difficulty  about  her 
religion,  and  if  she  would  consent  to  have  la  petite  bap- 
tized and  brought  up  as  a  Protestant.  She  shook  her  head 
and  said  very  simply — 

"No:  in  France,  in  other  days,  I  would  have  minded; 
but  all  is  changed.  I  never  was  fond  of  religion,  but  I 
knew  it  was  right.  J'aimais  les  fleurs,  les  hah,  la 
musique,  et  man  mari  qui  etait  heau.  But  all  that  is 
gone  away.  There  is  nothing  of  my  religion  in  this  coun- 
try. But  the  good  God  must  be  here,  for  you  are  good;  I 
leave  all  to  you." 

It  was  clear  that  Annette  regarded  her  present  life  as  a 
sort  of  death  to  the  world — an  existence  on  a  remote  island 
where  she  had  been  saved  from  wreck.  She  was  too  indo- 
lent mentally,  too  little  interested,  to  acquaint  herself  with 
any  secrets  of  the  isle.  The  transient  energy,  the  more 
vivid  consciousness  and  sympathy  which  had  been  stirred 
in  her  during  Mr.  Lyon's  illness,  had  soon  subsided  into 
the  old  apathy  to  everything  except  her  child.  She  with- 
ered like  a  plant  in  strange  air,  and  the  three  years  of  life 
that  remained  were  but  a  slow  and  gentle  death.  Those 
three  years  were  to  Mr.  Lyoii  a  period  of  such  self-suppres- 
sion and  life  in  another  as  few  men  know.  Strange!  that 
the  passion  for  this  woman,  which  he  felt  to  have  drawn 
him  aside  from  the  right  as  much  as  if  he  had  broken  the 
most  solemn  vows — for  that  only  was  right  to  him  which 
he  held  the  best  and  highest — the  passion  for  a  being  who 
had  no  glimpse  of  his  thoughts  induced  a  more  thorough 
renunciation  than  he  had  ever  known  in  the  time  of  his 
complete  devotion  to  his  ministerial  career.  He  had  no 
flattery  now,  either  from  himself  or  the  world;  he  knew 
that  he  had  fallen,  and  Ms  world  had  forgotten  him,  or 
shook  their  heads  at  his  memory.  The  only  satisfaction 
he  had  was  the  satisfaction  of  his  tenderness — which  meant 
untiring  work,  untiring  patience,  untiring  wakefulness 
even  to  the  dumb  signs  of  feeling  in  a  creature  whom  he 
alone  cared  for. 

The  day  of  parting  came,  and  he  Avas  loft  with  little  Esther 
as  the  one  visible  sign  of  that  four  years'  break  in  his  life. 
A  year  afterward  he  entered  the  ministry  again,  and  lived 


86  FELIX   HOLT, 

with  the  utmost  sparingness  that  Esther  might  be  so  edu- 
cated as  to  be  able  to  get  her  own  bread  in  case  of  his 
death.  Her  probable  facility  in  acquiring  French  naturally 
suggested  his  sending  her  to  a  French  school,  which  would 
give  her  a  special  advantage  as  a  teacher.  It  Avas  a  Prot- 
estant school,  and  French  Protestantism  had  the  high 
recommendation  of  being  non-Prelatical.  It  was  under- 
stood that  Esther  would  contract  no  Papistical  supersti- 
tions; and  this  was  perfectly  true;  but  she  contracted,  as 
we  see,  a  good  deal  of  non-Papistical  vanity. 

Mr.  Lyon's  reputation  as  a  preacher  and  devoted  pastor 
had  revived;  but  some  dissatisfaction  beginning  to  be  felt 
by  his  congregation  at  a  certain  laxity  detected  by  them 
in  his  views  as  to  the  limits  of  salvation,  Avhich  he  had  in 
one  sermon  even  hinted  might  extend  to  unconscious 
recipients  of  mercy,  he  had  found  it  desirable  seven  years 
ago  to  quit  this  ten  years'  pastorate  and  accept  a  call  from 
the  less  important  church  in  Malthouse  Yard,  Treby 
Magna. 

This  was  Eufus  Lyon's  history,  at  that  time  unknown 
in  its  fullness  to  any  human  being  besides  himself.  We 
can  perhaps  guess  what  memories  they  were  that  relaxed 
the  stringency  of  his  doctrine  on  the  point  of  salvation. 
In  the  deepest  of  all  senses  his  heart  said — 

"Though  she  be  dead,  yet  let  me  think  she  lives, 
And  feed  my  mind,  that  dies  for  want  of  her." 


CHAPTER  VIL 

M.  It  was  but  yesterday  you  spolie  him  weU— 

You've  cliang-ed  your  mind  so  soon  ? 
N.  Not  I— 'tis  he 

That,  changing  to  my  thought,  has  changed  my  mind. 

No  man  puts  rotten  apples  in  his  pouch 

Because  their  upper  side  looked  fair  to  him. 

Constancy  in  mistake  is  constant  folly. 

The  news  that  the  rich  heir  of  the  Transomes  was  actu 
ally  come  back,  and  had  been  seen  at  Treby,  was  carried 
to  some  one  else  who  had  more  reasons  for  being  interested 
in  it  than  the  Reverend  Rufns  Lyon  was  yet  conscious  of 
having.  It  was  owing  to  tliis  that  at  three  o'clock,  two 
days  afterward,  a  carriage  and  pair,  with  coachman  and 
footman  in  crimson  and  drab,  passed  through  the  lodge- 


THE   RADICAL.  87 

gates  at  Transome  Court.  Inside  there  was  a  hale,  good- 
natured-looking  man  of  sixty,  Avhose  hands  rested  on  a 
knotted  stick  held  between  his  knees;  and  a  blue-eyed, 
well-featured  lady,  fat  and  middle-aged — a  mountain  of 
satin,  lace,  and  exquisite  muslin  embroidery.  They  were 
not  persons  of  a  highly  remarkable  appearance,  but  to 
most  Trebians  they  seemed  absolutely  unique,  and  likely 
to  be  known  anywhere.  If  you  had  looked  down  upon 
them  from 'the  box  of  Sampson's  coach,  he  would  have 
said,  after  lifting  his  hat,  "  Sir  Maximus  and  his  lady — 
did  you  see?"  thinking  it  needless  to  add  the  surname. 

''We  shall  find  her  greatly  elated,  doubtless,"  Lady 
Debarry  was  saying.    ''She  has  been  in  the  shade  so  long." 

"Ah,  poor  thing!"  said  Sir  Maximus.  "A  fine  woman 
she  was  in  her  bloom.  I  remember  the  first  county  ball 
she  attended  we  were  all  ready  to  fight  for  the  sake  of 
dancing  with  her.  I  always  liked  her  from  that  time — I 
never  swallowed  the  scandal  about  her  myself." 

'■'  If  we  are  to  be  intimate  with  her,"  said  Lady  Debarry, 
"  I  wish  you  would  avoid  making  such  allusions.  Sir  Max- 
imus.   I  should  not  like  Selina  and  Harriet  to  hear  them." 

"  My  dear,  I  should  have  forgotten  all  about  the  scan- 
dal, only  you  remind  me  of  it  sometimes,"  retorted  the 
baronet,"^  smiling  and  taking  out  his  snufE-box. 

"  These  sudden  turns  of  fortune  are  often  dangerous  to 
an  excitable  constitution,"  said  Lady  Debarry,  not  choos- 
ing to  notice  her  husband's  epigram.  "Poor  Lady  Alicia 
Methurst  got  heart-disease  from  a  sudden  piece  of  luck — 
the  death  of  her  uncle,  you  know.  If  Mrs.  Transome  were 
wise  she  would  go  to  town — she  can  afford  it  now — and 
consult  Dr.  Truncheon.  I  should  say  myself  he  would 
order  her  digitalis:  I  have  often  guessed  exactly  Avhat  a 
prescription  would  be.  But  it  certainly  was  always  one  of 
her  weak  points  to  think  that  she  understood  medicine 
better  than  other  people." 

"  She's  a  healthy  woman  enough,  surely:  see  how  upright 
she  is,  and  she  rides  about  like  a  girl  of  twenty." 

"  She  is  so  thin  that  she  makes  me  shudder." 

"Pooh I  she's  slim  and  active:  women  are  not  bid  for 
by  the  pound." 

"  Pray  don't  be  so  coarse." 

Sir  Maximus  laughed  and  showed  his  good  teeth,  which 
made  his  laughter  very  becoming.  The  carriage  stopped, 
and  they  were  soon  ushered  into  Mrs.  Transome's  sitting- 
room,  where  she  was  working  at  her  worsted  embroidery. 


88  FELIX  HOLT, 

^  A  little  daily  embroidery  had  been  a  constant  element  in 
Mrs.  Transome's  life;  that  soothing  occupation  of  taking 
stitches  to  produce  what  neither  she  nor  any  one  else 
wanted,  was  then  the  resource  of  many  a  well-born  and 
unhajapy  woman. 

She  received  much  warm  congratulation  and  pressure  of 
her  hand  with  jierfect  composure  of  manner;  but  she 
became  paler  than  usual,  and  her  hands  turned  quite  cold. 
The  Debarrys  did  not  yet  know  what  Harold's  politics 
were. 

"  Well,  our  lucky  youngster  is  come  in  the  nick  of  time," 
said  Sir  Maximus:  "if  he'll  stand,  he  and  Philip  can  run 
in  harness  together  and  keep  out  both  the  Whigs." 

"It  is  really  quite  a  providential  thing  —  his  returning 
just  now,"  said  Lady  Debarry.  "I  couldn't  help  thinking 
that  something  would  occur  to  prevent  Philip  from  having 
such  a  man  as  Peter  Garstin  for  his  colleague." 

"I  call  my  friend  Harold  a  youngster,"  said  Sir  Maxi- 
mus, "for,  you  know,  I  remember  him  only  as  he  was 
when  that  portrait  was  taken." 

"  That  is  a  long  while  ago,"  said  Mrs.  Transonic.  "  My 
son  is  much  altered,  as  you  may  imagine." 

There  was  a  confused  sound  of  voices  in  the  library 
while  this  talk  was  going  on.  Mrs.  Transome  chose  to 
ignore  that  noise,  but  her  face,  from  being  pale,  began  to 
flush  a  little. 

"Yes,  yes,  on  the  outside,  I  dare  say.  "But  he  was  a 
fine  fellow — I  always  liked  him.  And  if  anybody  had 
asked  me  what  I  should  choose  for  the  good  of  the  county, 
I  coukbi't  have  thought  of  anything  better  than  having  a 
young  Transome  for  a  neighbor  who  Avill  take  an  active 
part.  The  Transome«  and  the  Debarrys  were  always  on 
the  right  side  together  in  old  days.  Of  course  he'll  stand — 
he  has  made  up  his  mind  to  it?" 

The  need  for  an  answer  to  this  embarrassing  question 
was  deferred  by  the  increase  of  inarticulate  sounds  accom- 
panied by  a  bark  from  the  library,  and  the  sudden  appear- 
ance at  the  tapestry-hung  doorway  of  old  Mr.  Transome 
with  a  cord  round  his  waist,  playing  a  very  poor-paced 
horse  for  a  black-maned  little  boy  about  three  years  old, 
who  was  urging  him  on  with  loud  encouraging  noises  and 
occasional  thumps  from  a  stick  which  he  wielded  with  some 
difficulty.  The  old  man  paused  with  a  vague  gentle  emile 
at  the  doorway,  while  the  baronet  got  up  to  speak  to  him. 
Nimrod  snuffed  at  his  master's  legs  to  ascertain  that  he  was 


THE   RADICAL.  89 

not  hurt,  and  the  little  boy,  finding  something  new  to  be 
looked  at,  let  go  the  cord  and  came  round  in  front  of  the 
company,  dragging  his  stick,  and  standing  at  a  safe  war- 
dancing  distance  as  he  fixed  his  great  black  eyes  on  Lady 
Debarry. 

"Dear  me,  what  a  splendid  little  boy,  Mrs.  Transome! 
why — it  cannot  be — can  it  be — that  you  have  the  happi- 
ness to  be  a  grandmamma?" 

''Yes;  that  is  my  son's  little  boy." 

"Indeed!"  said  Lady  Debarry,  really  amazed.  "I 
hever  heard  you  speak  of  his  marriage.  He  has  brought 
you  home  a  daugliter-in-law,  then?" 

"No,"  said  Mrs.  Transome,  coldly;  "she  is  dead." 

"0 — o — oh!"  said  Lady  Debarry,  in  a  tone  ludicrously 
undecided  between  condolence,  satisfaction,  and  general 
mistiness.  "  How  very  singular — I  mean  that  we  should 
not  have  heard  of  Mr.  Harold's  marriage.  But  he's  a 
charming  little  fellow:  come  to  me,  you  round-cheeked 
cherub." 

The  black  eyes  continued  fixed  as  if  by  a  sort  of  fascina- 
tion on  Lady  Debarry's  face,  and  her  affable  invitation  was 
unlieeded.  At  last,  putting  his  head  forward  and  pouting 
his  lips,  the  cherub  gave  forth  with  marked  intention  the 
sounds,  "JSTau-o-oom,"  many  times  repeated:  apparently 
they  summed  up  his  opinion  of  Lady  Debarry,  and  may 
perhaps  have  meant  "naughty  old  woman,"  but  his 
speech  was  a  broken  lisping  polyglot  of  hazardous  inter- 
pretation. Then  he  turned  to  pull  at  the  Blenheim  span- 
iel, which,  being  old  and  peevish,  gave  a  little  snap. 

"'  Go,  go,  Harry;  let  poor  Puff  alone — he'll  bite  you," 
said  Mrs.  Transome,  stooping  to  release  her  aged  pet. 

Her  words  were  too  suggestive,  for  Harry  immediately 
laid  hold  of  her  arm  with  his  teeth,  and  bit  with  all  his 
miglit.  Hapjiily  the  stuffs  upon  it  were  some  protection, 
but  the  pain  forced  Mrs.  Transome  to  give  a  low  cry;  and 
Sir  Maximus,  who  had  now  turned  to  reseat  himself,  shook 
the  little  rascal  off,  whereupon  he  burst  away  and  trotted 
into  the  library  again. 

"I  fear  you  are  hurt,"  said  Lady  Debarry,  with  sincere 
concern.  "What  a  little  savage!  Do  have  your  arm 
attended  to,  my  dear — I  recommend  fomentation — don't 
think  of  me." 

"Oh,  thank  you,  it  is  nothing,"  said  Mrs.  Transome, 
biting  her  lip  and  smiling  alternately;  "it  will  soon  go  oft'. 
The  pleasures  of  being  a  grandmamma,  you  perceive.   The 


90  FELIX   HOLT, 

child  has  taken  a  dislike  to  me;,  but  he  makes  quite  a  new 
life  for  Mr.  Transome;  they  were  playfellows  at  once.'' 

''Bless  my  heart!"  said  Sir  Maximus,  "it  is  odd  to 
think  of  Harold  having  been  a  family  man  so  long.  I 
made  up  my  mind  he  was  a  young  bachelor.  What  an  old 
stager  I  am,  to  be  sure!  And  whom  has  he  married?  I 
hope  we  shall  soon  have  the  pleasure  of  seeing  Mrs.  Harold 
Transome."  Sir  Maximus,  occupied  with  old  Mr.  Tran- 
some, had  not  overheard  the  previous  conversation  on  that 
subject. 

''She  is  no  longer  living,"  Lady  Debarry  hastily  inter- 
posed; "but  now,  my  dear  Sir  Maximus,  we  must  not 
hinder  Mrs.  Transome  from  attending  to  her  arm.  I  am 
sure  she  is  in  pain.  Don't  say  another  word,  my  dear — 
we  shall  see  you  again — you  ana  Mr.  Harold  will  come  and 
dine  with  us  on  Thursday — say  yes,  only  yes.  Sir  Maxi- 
mus is  longing  to  see  him;  and  Philip  will  be  down." 

"Yes,  yes!"  said  Sir  Maximus;  "  he  must  lose  no  time 
in  making  Philip's  acquaintance.  Tell  him  Philip  is  a 
fine  fellow — carried  everything  before  him  at  Oxford.  And 
your  son  must  be  returned  along  with  him  for  North  Loam- 
shire.     You  said  he  meant  to  stand?" 

"I  will  write  and  let  you  know  if  Harold  has  any 
engagement  for  Thursday;  he  would  of  course  be  happy 
otherwise,"  said  Mrs.  Transome,  evading  the  question. 

"If  not  Thursday,  the  next  day — the  very  first  day  he 
can." 

The  visitors  left,  and  Mrs.  Transome  was  almost  glad 
of  the  painful  bite  which  had  saved  her  from  being  ques- 
tioned further  about  Harold's  politics.  "  This  is  the  last 
visit  I  shall  receive  from  them,"  she  said  to  herself  as  the 
door  closed  behind  them,  and  she  rang  for  Denner. 

"  That  poor  creature  is  not  happy,  Sir  Maximus,"  said 
Lady  Debarry  as  they  drove  along.  "  Something  annoys 
iier  about  her  son.  I  hope  there  is  nothing  unj^leasant  in 
his  character.  Either  he  kept  his  marriage  a  secret  from 
licr,  or  she  was  ashamed  of  it.  He  is  thirty-four  at  least 
by  this  time.  After  living  in  the  East  so  long  he  may 
liave  become  a  sort  of  person  one  would  not  care  to  be 
intimate  with,  and  that  savage  boy — he  doesn't  look  like 
a  lady's  child." 

"Pooh,  my  dear,"  said  Sir  Maximus,  "women  tliink  so 
much  of  those  minutiae.  In  the  present  state  of  the 
country  it  is  onr  duty  to  look  at  a  man's  position  and 
politics.     Philip  and  my  brother  are  both  of  that  opinion, 


THE   EADICAL.  91 

and  I  think  they  know  what's  right,  if  any  man  does.  We 
are  bound  to  regard  every  man  of  our  23arty  as  a  public 
instrument,  and  to  pull  all  together.  The  Transomes 
have  always  been  a  good  Tory  family,  but  it  has  been  a 
cipher  of  late  years.  This  young  fellow  coming  back  with 
a  fortune  to  give  the  family  a  head  and  a  i)osition  is  a 
clear  gain  to  the  county;  and  with  Philip  he'll  get  into 
the  right  hands — of  course  he  wants  guiding,  having  been 
out  of  the  country  so  long.  All  we  have  to  ask  is, 
whether  a  man's  a  Tory,  and  will  make  a  stand  for  the 
good  of  the  country?  —  that's  the  plain  English  of  the 
matter.  And  I  do  beg  of  you,  my  dear,  to  set  aside  all 
these  gossiping  niceties,  and  exert  yourself,  like  a  woman 
of  sense  and  spirit  as  you  are,  to  bring  the  right  people 
together." 

Here  Sir  Maximus  gave  a  deep  cough,  took  out  his 
snuff-box,  and  tapped  it:  he  had  made  a  serious  marital 
speech,  an  exertion  to  which  he  was  rarely  urged  by  any- 
thing smaller  than  a  matter  of  conscience.  And  this 
outline  of  the  whole  duty  of  a  Tory  was  matter  of  con- 
science with  him;  though  the  ''Duffield  Watchman"  had 
pointed  expressly  to  Sir  Maximus  Debarry  amongst  others, 
in  branding  the  co-operation  of  the  Tories  as  a  conscious 
selfishness  and  reckless  immorality,  which,  however,  would 
be  defeated  by  the  co-operation  of  all  the  friends  of  truth 
and  liberty,  who,  the  "Watchman"  trusted,  would  subor- 
dinate all  non-political  differences  in  order  to  return  rep- 
resentatives pledged  to  support  the  present  Government. 

"I  am  sure,  Sir  Maximus,"  Lady  Debarry  answered, 
"you  could  not  have  observed  that  anything  was  wanting 
in  my  manners  to  Mrs.  Transomo." 

"No,  no,  my  dear;  but  I  say  this  by  way  of  caution. 
Never  mind  what  was  done  at  Smvrna,  or  Avliether  Tran- 
some  likes  to  sit  with  his  heels  tucked  up.  We  may  surely 
wink  at  a  few  things  for  the  sake  of  the  public  interest,  if 
God  Almighty  does;  and  if  He  didn't,  1  don't  know  whui 
would  have  become  of  the  country  —  Government  could 
never  have  been  carried  on,  and  many  a  good  battle  would 
have  been  lost.  That's  the  philosophy  of  the  matter,  and 
the  common-sense  too." 

Good  Sir  Maximus  gave  a  deep  cough  and  tapped  his 
box  again,  inwardly  remarking,  that  if  he  had  not  been 
such  a  lazy  fellow  he  might  have  made  as  good  a  figure  as 
his  son  Philip. 

But  at  this  point  the  carriage,  which  was  rolling  by  a 


93  FELIX   HOLT, 

turn  toward  Treby  Magna,  passed  a  well-dressed  man,  wLo 
raised  his  hat  to  Sir  Maximus,  and  called  to  the  coachman 
to  stop. 

"Excuse  me,  Sir  Maximus,'^  said  this  personage,  stand- 
ing uncovered  at  the  carriage-door,  ''but  I  have  just 
learned  something  of  importance  at  Treby,  which  I  thought 
you  would  like  to  know  as  soon  as  possible," 

"Ah!  what's  that?  Something  about  Garstin  or  Cle- 
ment?" said  Sir  Maximus,  seeing  the  other  draw  a  poster 
from  his  pocket. 

"  No;  rather  worse,  I  fear  you  will  think.  A  new  Eadical 
candidate.  I  got  this  by  a  stratagem  from  the  printer's 
boy.     They're  not  posted  yet." 

"  A  Eadical! "  said  Sir  Maximus,  in  a  tone  of  incredulous 
disgust,  as  he  took  the  folded  bill.  "What  fool  is  he? — 
he'll  have  no  chance." 

"  They  say  he's  richer  than  Garstin." 

"Harold  Transome!"  shouted  Sir  Maximus,  as  he  read 
the  name  in  three-inch  letters.  "I  don't  believe  it — it's  a 
trick — it's  a  squib:  why — why — we've  just  been  to  his 
place — eh?  do  you  know  any  more?  Speak,  sir — speak; 
don't  deal  out  your  story  like  a  damned  mountebank,  who 
wants  to  keep  jieople  gaping." 

"Sir  Maximus, ,  pray  don't  give  way  so,"  said  Lady 
Debarry. 

"  I'm  afraid  there's  no  doubt  about  it,  sir,"  said  Christian. 
"After  getting  the  bill,  I  met  Mr.  Labron's  clerk,  and  he 
said  he  had  just  had  the  whole  story  from  Jermyn's  clerk. 
The  Eam  Inn  is  engaged  all  ready,  and  a  committee  is 
being  made  up.  He  says  Jermyn  goes  like  a  steam  engine, 
when  he  has  a  mind,  although  he  makes  such  long-winded 
speeches." 

"Jermyn  be  hanged  for  a  two-faced  rascal!  Tell 
Mitchell  to  drive  on.  It's  of  no  use  to  stay  chattering 
here.  Jump  up  on  the  box  and  go  home  with  us.  I  may 
want  you." 

"You  see  I  was  right.  Sir  Maximus,"  said  the  baronet's 
wife.  "I  had  an  instinct  that  we  should  find  him  an 
unpleasant  person." 

"Fudge!  if  you  had  such  a  fine  instinct,  why  did  you 
let  us  go'to  Transome  Court  and  make  fools  of  ourselves?" 

"Would  you  have  listened  tome?  But  of  course  you 
will  not  have  him  to  dine  with  you?" 

"Dine  with  me?  I  should  think  not.  I'd  sooner  he 
should  dine  off  me.     I  see  how  it  is  clearly  enough.     He 


THE    EADICAL.  93 

has  become  a  regular  beast  among  those  Mahometans — he's 
got  neither  religion  nor  morals  left.  He  can't  know  any- 
thing about  English  politics.  He'll  go  and  cut  his  own 
nose  ofll:  as  a  landholder,  and  never  know.  However,  he 
won't  get  in — he'll  spend  his  money  for  nothing." 

"I  fear  he  is  a  very  licentious  man,"  said  Lady  Debarry. 
"  We  know  now  why  his  mother  seemed  so  uneasy.  I 
should  think  she  reflects  a  little,  poor  creature." 

''It's  a  confounded  nuisance  we  didn't  meet  Christian 
on  our  way,  instead  of  coming  back;  but  better  now  than 
later.  He's  an  uncommonly  adroit,  useful  fellow,  that 
factotum  of  Philip's.  I  wish  Phil  would  take  my  man 
and  give  me  Christian.  I'd  make  him  house-steward:  he 
might  reduce  the  accounts  a  little." 

Perhaps  Sir  Maximus  would  not  have  been  so  sanguine 
as  to  Mr.  Christian's  economical  virtues  if  he  had  seen 
that  gentleman  relaxing  himself  the  same  evening  among 
the  other  distinguished  dependents  of  the  family  and  fre- 
quenters of  the  steward's  room.  But  a  man  of  Sir  Maxi- 
mus's  rank  is  like  those  antediluvian  animals  whom  the 
system  of  things  condemned  to  carry  such  a  huge  bulk  that 
they  really  could  not  inspect  their  bodily  appurtenance, 
and  had  no  conception  of  their  own  tails:  their  pal'asites^ 
doubtless  had  a  merry  time  of  it,  and  often  did  extremely 
well  when  the  high-bred  saurian  himself  was  ill  at  ease. 
Treby  Manor,  measured  from  the  front  saloon  to  the 
remotest  sned,  was  as  large  as  a  moderate-sized  village,  and 
there  were  certainly  more  lights  burning  in  it  every 
evening,  more  wine,  spirits,  and  ale  drunk,  more  waste 
and  more  folly,  than  could  be  found  in  some  large  villages. 
There  was  fast  revelry  in  the  steward's  room,  and  slow  rev- 
elry in  the  Scotch  bailiff's  room;  short  whist,  costume,  and 
flirtation  in  the  housekeeper's  room,  and  the  same  at  a 
lower  price  in  the  servants'  hall;  a  select  Olympian  feast 
in  the  private  apartment  of  the  cook,  Avho  was  a  much 
grander  person  than  her  ladyship,  and  wore  gold  and 
jewelry  to'fl,  vast  amount  of  suet;  a  gambling  group  in  the 
stables,  and  the  coachman,  perhaps  the  most  innocent 
member  of  the  establishment,  tippling  in  majestic  solitude 
by  a  fire  in  the  harness-room.  For  Sir  Maximus,  as  every 
one  said,  was  a  gentleman  of  the  right  sort,  condescended 
to  no  mean  inquiries,  greeted  his  head-sorvants  with  a 
''good-evening,  gentlemen,"  wlien  he  met  them  in  the 
park,  and  only  snarled  in  a  subdued  way  when  he  looked 
over  the  accounts,  willing  to  endure  some  personal  incon- 


94  FELIX    HOLT, 

venience  in  order  to  keep  up  the  institutions  of  the  coun- 
tr3%  to  maintain  liis  hereditary  establisliment^  and  do  his 
duty  in  that  station  of  life — the  station  of  the  long-tailed 
saurian — to  which  it  had  pleased  Providence  to  call  him. 

The  focus  of  brilliancy  at  Treby  Manor  that  evening 
was  in  no  way  tlie  dining-room,  where  Sir  Maximus  sipped 
his  port  under  some  mental  depression,  as  he  discussed 
with  his  brother,  the  Reverend  Augustus,  the  sad  fact  that 
one  of  the  oldest  names  in  the  county  was  to  be  on  the 
wrong  side — not  in  the  drawing-room,  where  Miss  Debarry 
and  Miss  Selina,  quietly  elegant  in  their  dress  and  man- 
ners, were  feeling  rather  dull  than  otherwise,  having 
finished  Mr.  Bulwer's  "Eugene  Aram,"  and  being  thrown 
back  on  the  last  great  prose  work  of  Mr.  Southey,  while 
their  mamma  slumbered  a  little  on  the  sofa.  No;  the  cen- 
tre of  eager  talk  and  enjoyment  was  the  steward's  room, 
where  Mr.  Scales,  house-steward  and  head-butler,  a  man 
most  solicitous  about  his  boots,  wristbands,  the  roll  of  his 
wliiskers,  and  other  attributes  of  a  gentleman,  distributed 
cigars,  cognac,  and  whisky,  to  various  colleagues  and 
guests  who  were  discussing,  with  that  freedom  of  con- 
jecture which  is  one  of  our  inalienable  privileges  as  Britons, 
the  probable  amount  of  Harold  Transome's  fortune,  con- 
cerning which  fame  had  already  been  busy  long  enough  to 
have  acquired  vast  magnifying  power. 

The  chief  part  in  this  scene  was  undoubtedly  Mr. 
Christian's,  although  he  had  hitherto  been  comparatively 
silent;  but  he  occupied  two  chairs  with  so  much  grace, 
throwing  his  right  leg  over  the  seat  of  the  second,  and 
resting  his  right  hand  on  the  back;  he  held  his  cigar  and 
displayed  a  splendid  seal-ring  with  such  becoming  non- 
chalance, and  had  his  gray  hair  arranged  with  so  much 
taste,  that  experienced  eyes  would  at  once  have  seen  even 
the  great  Scales  himself  to  be  but  a  secondary  character. 

"Why,"  said  Mr.  Crowder,  an  old  respectable  tenant, 
though  much  in  arrear  as  to  his  rent,  who  condescended 
frequently  to  drink  in  the  steward's  room  for  the  sake  of 
the  conversation;  "why,  1  suppose  they  get  money  so  fast 
in  the  East— it's  wonderful.  Why,"  lie  went  on,  with  a 
hesitating  look  toward  Mr.  Scales,  "this  Transonic  p'raps 
got  a  matter  of  a  hundred  thousand." 

"A  hundred  thousand,  my  dear  sir!  fiddle-stick's  end 
of  a  hundred  thousand,"  said  Mr.  Scales,  with  a  contempt 
very  painful  to  be  bonie  by  a  modest  man. 

*'  Well,"  said  Mr.  Crowder,  giving  way  under  torture. 


THE   RADICAL.  95 

as  the  all-knowing  butler  puffed  and  stared  at  him,  ''per- 
haps not  so  much  as  that/'^ 

"Not  so  much,  sir!  I  tell  you  that  a  hundred  thousand 
pounds  is  a  bagatelle." 

"  Well,  I  know  it's  a  big  sura,''  said  Mr.  Crowder,  depre- 
catingiy. 

Here  there  was  a  general  laugh.  All  the  other  intellects 
present  were  more  cultivated  than  Mr.  Crowder's. 

"'Bagatelle  is  the  French  for  trifle,  my  friend,"  said  Mr. 
Christian.  "  Don't  talk  over  people's  heads  so.  Scales.  1 
shall  have  hard  work  to  understand  you  myself  soon." 

''Come,  that's  a  good  one,"  said  the  head-gardener,  who 
was  a  ready  admirer;  "I  should  like  to  hear  the  thing  you 
don't  understand,  Christian." 

"  He's  a  first-rate  hand  at  sneering,"  said  Mr.  Scales, 
rather  nettled. 

"Don't  be  waspish,  man.  I'll  ring  the  bell  for  lemons, 
and  make  some  punch.  That's  the  thing  for  putting 
people  up  to  the  unknown  tongues,"  said  Mr.  Christian, 
starting  up,  and  slapping  Scales's  shoulder  as  he  passed 
him. 

"What  I  mean,  Mr.  Crowder,  is  this."  Here  Mr. 
Scales  paused  to  puff,  and  pull  down  his  waistcoat  in  a 
gentlemanly  manner,  and  drink,  lie  was  wont  in  this 
way  to  give  his  hearers  time  for  meditation. 

"Come,  then,  speak  English;  I'm  not  against  being 
tauglit,"  said  the  reasonable  Crowder. 

"  What  I  mean  is,  that  in  a  large  way  of  trade  a  man 
turns  his  capital  over  almost  as  soon  as  he  can  turn  him- 
self. Bless  your  soul!  I  know  something  about  these 
matters,  eh,  Brent?" 

"  To  be  sure  you  do — few  men  more,"  said  the  gardener, 
who  was  the  person  appealed  to. 

"Not  that  I've  had  anything  to  do  with  commercial 
families  myself.  I've  those  feelings  that  I  look  to  other 
tilings  besides  lucre.  But  I  can't  say  tluit  I've  not  been 
intimate  with  parties  who  have  been  less  nice  than  I  am 
myself;  and  knowing  what  I  know,  I  sliouldn't  wonder  if 
Transome  had  as  much  as  five  hundred  thousand.  Bless 
your  soul,  sir!  i)eople  who  get  their  money  out  of  land  are 
as  long  scraping  five  pounds  together  as  your  trading  men 
are  in  turning  five  pounds  into  a  hundred." 

"That's  a  wicked  thing,  though," 'said  Mr.  Crowder, 
meditatively.  "However,"  he  went  on,  retreating  from 
this  difiieuit  ground,  "  trade  or  no  trade,  the  Transomes 


96  FELIX   HOLT, 

have  been  poor  enough  this  many  a  long  year.  Fve  a 
brother  a  tenant  on  their  estate — t  onglit  to  know  a  little 
bit  about  that." 

"TheyVe  kept  up  no  establishment  at  all,"  said  Mr. 
Scales,  with  disgust,  ''They've  even  let  their  kitchen 
gardens.  I  suppose  it  was  the  eldest  son's  gambling.  Fve 
seen  something  of  that.  A  man  who  has  always  lived  in 
first-rate  families  is  likely  to  know  a  thing  or  two  on  that 
subject." 

"  Ah,  but  it  wasn't  gambling  did  the  first  mischief," 
said. Mr.  Crowder,  with  a  slight  smile,  feeling  that  it  was 
his  turn  to  have  some  superiority.  "New-comers  don't 
know  what  happened  in  this  country  twenty  and  thirty 
yeai's  ago.  I'm  turned  fifty  myself,  and  my  father  lived 
under  Sir  Maxum's  father.  But  if  anybody  from  London 
can  tell  me  more  than  I  know  about  this  country-side,  I'm 
willing  to  listen." 

"'What  was  it,  then,  if  it  wasn't  gambling?"  said  Mr. 
Scales,  with  some  impatience.  "7  don't  pretend  to 
know." 

''It  was  law — law — that's  what  it  was.  Not  but  what 
the  Transomes  always  won." 

"And  always  lost,"  said  the  too-ready  Scales.  "Yes, 
yes;  I  think  we  all  know  tiie  nature  of  law." 

"  There  was  the  last  suit  of  all  made  the  most  noise,  as 
I  understood,"  continued  Mr.  Crowder;  "but  it  wasn't 
tried  hereabout.  They  said  there  was  a  deal  o'  false 
swearing.  Some  young  man  pretended  to  be  the  true 
heir — let  me  see — I  can't  justly  remember  the  names — 
he'd  got  two.  He  swore  he  was  one  man,  and  they 
swore  he  was  another.  However,  Lawyer  Jermyn  won 
it  —  they  say  he'd  win  a  game  against  the  Old  One  him- 
self—  and  the  young  fellow  turned  out  to  be  a  scamj). 
Stop  a  bit  —  his  name  was  Scaddon  —  Henry  Scaddon." 

Mr,  Christian  here  let  a  lemon  slip  from  his  hand  into 
the  2)unch-bowl  with  a  plash  which  sent  some  of  the  nectar 
into  the  company's  faces, 

"Hallo!  What  a  bungler  I  am!"  he  said,  looking  as  if 
lie  were  quite  jarred  by  this  unusual  awkwardness  of  his. 
"Go  on  with  your  tale,  Mr.  Crowder  —  a  scamp  mimed 
Henry  Scaddon." 

"Well,  that's  the  tale,"  said  Mr.  Crowder.  "He  was 
never  seen  nothing  of  any  more.  It  was  a  deal  talked  of 
at  the  time  —  and  I've  sat  by;  and  my  father  used  to  shake 
his  head;  and  always  when  this  Mrs.  Transome  was  talked 


THE    EADICAL.  97 

of,  lie  used  to  shake  his  head,  and  say  she  carried  things 
with  a  high  hand  once.  But,  Lord!  it  was  before  the 
battle  of  Waterloo,  and  Tm  a  poor  hand  at  tales;  I  don't 
see  much  good  in  ^em  myself  —  but  if  anybody'll  tell  me  a 
cure  for  the  sheep-rot,  I'll  thank  him." 

Here  Mr.  Crowder  relapsed  into  smoking  and  silence, 
a  little  discomfited  that  the  knowledge  of  which  he  had 
been  delivered  had  turned  out  rather  a  shapeless  and 
insignificant  birth. 

'•  Well,  well,  bygones  should  be  bygones;  there  are 
secrets  in  most  good  families,"  said  Mr.  Scales,  winking, 
"■  and  this  young  Transome,  coming  back  with  a  fortune 
to  keep  up  the  establishment,  and  have  things  done  in  a 
decent  and  gentlemanly  way  —  it  would  all  have  been  right 
if  he'd  not  been  this  sort  of  Radical  madman.  But  now 
he's  done  for  himself.  I  heard  Sir  Maximus  say  at  dinner 
that  he  would  be  excommunicated;  and  that's  a  pretty 
strong  word,  I  take  it." 

"What  does  it  mean,  Scales?"  said  Mr.  Christian,  who 
loved  tormenting. 

"Ay,  what's  the  meaning?"  insisted  Mr.  Crowder, 
encouraged  by  finding  that  even  Christian  was  in  the  dark. 

"Well,  it's" a  law  term  —  speaking  in  a  figurative  sort  of 
way — meaning  that  a  Radical  was  no  gentleman." 

"Perhaps  it's  partly  accounted  for  by  his  getting  his 
money  so  fast,  and  in  foreign  countries,"  said  Mr.  Crowder, 
tentatively.  "It's  reasonable  to  think  he'd  be  against  the 
land  and  this  country  —  eh,  Sircome?" 

Sircome  was  an  eminent  miller  who  had  considerable 
business  transactions  at  the  Manor,  and  appreciated  Mr. 
Scales's  merits  at  a  handsome  percentage  on  the  yearly 
account.  He  was  a  highly  honorable  tradesman,  but  in 
this  and  in  other  matters  submitted  to  the  institutions  of 
his  country;  for  great  houses,  as  he  observed,  must  have 
great  butlers.  He  replied  to  his  friend  Crowder  senten- 
tiously. 

"I  say  nothing.  Before  I  bring  words  to  market,  I 
should  like  to  see  'em  a  bit  scarcer.  There's  the  land  and 
there's  trade  —  I  hold  with  both.  I  swim  with  the 
stream." 

"Hey-day,  Mr.  Sircome!  that's  a  Radical  maxim,"  said 
Mr.  Christian,  who  knew  that  Mr.  Sircome's  last  sentence 
was  his  favorite  formula.  "I  advise  you  to  give  it  up, 
else  it  will  injure  the  quality  of  your  flour." 

"A  Radical  maxim!"  said  Mr.  Sircome,  in  a  tone  of 
7 


98  FELIX   HOLT, 

angry  astonishment.  "1  should  like  to  hear  you  prove 
that.     It's  as  old  as  my  grandfather,  anyhow." 

'Til  prove  it  m  one  minute/'  said  the  glib  Christian. 
"Reform  has  set  in  by  the  will  of  the  majority  —  that's 
the  rabble,  you  know;  and  the  respectability  and  good 
sense  of  the  country,  which  are  in  the  minority,  are  afraid 
of  Reform  running  on  too  fast.  So  the  stream  must  be 
running  toward  Reform  and  Radicalism;  and  if  you  swim 
with  it,  Mr.  Sircome,  you're  a  Reformer  and  a  Radical, 
and  your  flour  is  objectionable,  and  not  full  weight  —  and 
being  tried  by  Scales,  will  be  found  wanting." 

There  was  a  roaf  of  laughter.  This  pun  upon  Scales  was 
highly  appreciated  by  every  one  except  the  miller  and  the 
butler.  The  latter  pulled  down  his  waistcoat,  and  puffed 
and  stared  in  rather  an  excited  manner.  Mr.  Christian's 
wit,  in  general,  seemed  to  him  a  poor  kind  of  quibbling. 

''What  a  fellow  you  are  for  fence.  Christian,"  said  the 
gardener.  "  Hang  me,  if  I  don't  think  you're  up  to  every- 
thing." 

"  That's  a  compliment  you  might  pay  Old  Nick,  if  you 
come  to  that,"  said  Mr.  Sircome,  who  was  in  the  painful 
position  of  a  man  deprived  of  his  formula. 

"Yes,  yes,"  said  Mr.  Scales;  "I'm  no  fool  myself,  and 
could  parry  a  thrust  if  I  liked,  but  I  shouldn't  like  it  to  be 
said. of  me  that  I  was  up  to  everything.  I'll  keep  a  little 
principle  if  you  please." 

"To  be  sure,"  said  Christian,  ladling  out  the  punch. 
"What  would  justice  be  without  Scales?" 

The  laughter  was  not  quite  so  full-throated  as  before. 
Such  excessive  cleverness  was  a  little  Satanic. 

"A  joke's  a  joke  among  gentlemen,"  said  the  butler, 
getting  exasperated;  "I  think  there  has  been  quite  liber- 
ties enough  taken  with  my  name.  But  if  you  must  talk 
about  names,  I've  heard  of  a  party  before  now  calling  him- 
self a  Christian,  and  being  anything  but  it." 

"  Come,  that's  beyond  a  joke,"  said  the  surgeon's  assist- 
ant, a  fast  man,  whose  chief  scene  of  dissipation  was  the 
Manor.     "Let  it  drop,  Scales." 

"  Yes,  I  dare  say  it's  beyond  a  joke.  I'm  not  a  harlequin 
to  talk  nothing  but  jokes.  I  leave  that  to  other  Christians, 
who  are  up  to  everything,  and  have  been  everywhere — 
to  the  hulks,  for  what  I  know;  and  more  than  that,  they 
come  from  nobody  knows  where,  and  try  to  worm  them- 
selves into  gentlemen's  confidence,  to  the  prejudice  of  their 
betters." 


THE    RADICAL.  99 

There  was  a  stricter  sequence  in  Mr.  Scales's  angry 
eloquence  than  was  apparent  —  some  chief  links  being  con- 
fined to  his  own  breast,  as  is  often  the  case  in  energetic 
discourse.  The  company  were  in  a  state  of  expectation. 
There  was  something  behind  worth  knowing,  and  some- 
thing before  them  worth  seeing.  In  the  general  decay  of 
other  fine  British  pugnacious  sports,  a  quarrel  between 
gentlemen  was  all  the  more  exciting,  and  though  no  one 
would  himself  have  liked  to  turn  on  Scales,  no  one  was 
sorry  for  the  chance  of  seeing  him  put  down.  But  the 
amazing  Christian  was  unmoved.  He  had  taken  out  his 
handkerchief  and  was  rubbing  his  lips  carefully.  After 
a  slight  pause,  lie  spoke  wiih  perfect  coolness. 

"I  don't  intend  to  quarrel  with  you,  Scales.  Such 
talk  as  this  is  not  profitable  to  either  of  us.  It  makes 
you  purple  in  the  face  —  you  are  apopletic,  you  know  — 
and  it  spoils  good  company.  Better  toll  a  few  fibs  about 
me  behind  my  back  —  it  will  heat  you  less,  and  do  me 
more  harm.  I'll  leave  you  to  it;  I  shall  go  and  have  a 
game  at  whist  with  the  ladies." 

As  the  door  closed  behind  the  questionable  Christian, 
Mr,  Scales  was  in  a  state  of  frustration  that  prevented 
speech.     Every  one  was  rather  embarrassed. 

"That's  a  most  uncommon  sort  o'  fellow,"  said  Mr. 
Crowder,  in  an  undertone,  to  his  next  neighbor,  the 
gardener.  ''Why,  Mr.  Philip  picked  him  up  in  foreign 
parts,  didn't  he?" 

"He  was  a  courier,"  said  the  gardener.  "He's  had  a 
deal  of  experience.  And  I  believe,  by  wliatl  can  make 
out  — for  he's  been  pretty  free  with  me  sometimes — 'there 
was  a  time  when  he  was  in  that  rank  of  life  that  he  fought 


a  duel. 


jj 


"Ah!  that  makes  him  such  a  cool  chap,"  said  Mr. 
Crowder. 

"He's  what  I  call  an  overbearing  fellow,"  said  Mr.  Sir- 
come,  also  sotto  voce,  to  his  next  neighbor,  Mr.  Filmore, 
the  surgeon's  assistant.  "He  runs  you  down  with  a  sort 
of  talk  that's  neither  here  nor  there.  He's  got  a  deal  too 
many  samples  in  his  pocket  for  me." 

"All  I  know  is,  he's  a  wonderful  hand  at  cards,"  said 
Mr.  Filmore,  whose  whiskers  and  shirt-pin  were  quite 
above  the  average.  "I  wish  I  could  play  ecarU  as  he 
does;  it's  beautiful  to  see  him;  he  can  make  a  man  look 
pretty  blue;  he'll  empty  liis  pocket  for  him  in  no  time." 

"That's  none  to  his  credit,"  said  Mr.  Sircome. 


1.00  FELIX  HOLT, 

The  conversation  had  in  this  way  broken  up  into  tete-a- 
tete,  and  the  hilarity  of  the  evening  might  be  considered 
a  faihire.  Still  the  punch  was  drunk,  the  accounts  were 
duly  swelled,  and,  notwithstanding  the  innovating  spirit 
of  the  time.  Sir  Maximus  Debarry's  establishment  was 
kept  up  in  a  sound  hereditary  British  manner. 


CHAPTER  YIII. 

"  Rumor  doth  double  like  the  voice  and  echo." 

Shakespeark, 

The  mind  of  a  man  is  as  a  country  which  was  once  open  to  squatters,  who 
have  bred  and  multipHed  and  become  masters  of"  the  land.  But  then  hap- 
peneth  a  time  when  new  and  hungry  comers  dispute  the  land ;  and  there  is 
trial  of  strength,  and  the  stronger  wins.  Nevertheless  the  first  squatters  be 
they  who  have  prepared  the  ground,  and  the  crops  to  the  end  will  be 
sequent  (though  chiefly  on  the  natiu-e  of  the  soD,  as  of  light  sand,  mixed 
loam,  or  heavy  clay,  jet)  somewhat  on  the  primal  labor  and  sowing. 

That  talkative  maiden.  Rumor,  though  in  the  interest 
of  art  she  is  figured  as  a  youthful,  winged  beauty  with 
flowing  garments,  soaring  above  the  heads  of  men,  and 
breathing  world-thrilling  news  through  a  gracefully-curved 
trumpet,  is  in  fact  a  very  old  maid,  who  packers  her  silly 
face  by  the  fireside,  and  really  does  no  more  than  chirp  a 
wrong  guess  or  a  lame  story  into  the  ear  of  a  fellow-gossip; 
all  the  rest  of  the  work  attributed  to  her  is  done  by  the 
ordinary  working  of  those  passions  against  which  men 
pray  in  the  Litany,  witli  the  help  of  a  plentiful  stupidity 
against  which  Ave  have  never  yet  had  any  authorized  form 
of  prayer. 

When  Mr.  Scales's  strong  need  to  make  an  impressive 
figure  in  conversation,  together  with  his  very  slight  need 
of  any  other  premise  than  his  own  sense  of  his  wide  gen- 
eral knowledge  and  probable  infallibility,  led  him  to  specify 
five  hundred  thousand  as  the  lowest  admissible  amount  of 
Harold  Transome's  commercially-acquired  fortune,  it  was 
not  fair  to  put  this  down  to  poor  old  Miss  Rumor,  who  had 
only  told  Scales  that  the  fortune  was  considerable.  And 
again,  when  the  curt  Mr.  Sircomo  found  occasion  at  Treby 
to  mention  the  five  hundred  thousand  as  a  fact  that  folks 
seemed  pretty  sure  about,  this  expansion  of  the  butler  into 
"folks"  was  entirely  due  to  Mr.  Sircome's  habitual  prefer- 
ence for  words  which  could  not  be  laid  hold  of  or  give 


THE    RADICAL.  101 

people  a  handle  over  liim.  It  was  in  this  simple  way  that 
the  report  of  Harold  Transome's  fortune  spread  and  was 
magnified,  adding  much  lustre  to  his  opinions  in  the  eyes 
of  Liberals,  and  compelling  even  men  of  the  opposite 
party  to  admit  that  it  increased  his  eligibility  as  a  member 
for  N"ortli  Loamshire.  It  was  observed  by  a  sound  thinker 
in  these  parts  that  property  was  ballast;  and  when  once 
the  aptness  of  that  metaphor  had  been  perceived,  it  fol- 
lowed that  a  man  was  not  fit  to  navigate  the  sea  of  politics 
without  a  great  deal  of  such  ballast;  and  that,  rightly 
understood,  whatever  increased  the  expense  of  election, 
inasmuch  as  it  virtually  raised  the  property  qualification, 
was  .an  unspeakable  boon  to  tlie  country. 

Meanwhile  the  fortune  that  was  getting  larger  in  the 
imaginytion  of  constituents  was  shrinking  a  little  in  the 
imagination  of  its  owner.  It  was  hardly  more  than  a  hun- 
dred and  fifty  thousand;  and  there  were  not  only  the  heavy 
mortgages  to  be  paid  off,  but  also  a  large  amount  of  capital 
was  needed  in  order  to  repair  the  farm-buildings  all  over 
the  estate,  to  carry  out  extensive  draining,  and  make 
allowances  to  incoming  tenants,  which  might  remove  the 
difficulties  of  newly  letting  the  farms  in  a  time  of  agricult- 
ural depression.  The  farms  actually  tenanted  were  held 
by  men  who  had  begged  hard  to  succeed  their  fathers  in 
geeting  a  little  poorer  every  year,  on  land  which  was  also 
getting  poorer,  where  the  highest  rate  of  increase  was  in 
the  arrears  of  rent,  and  where  the  master,  in  crushed  hat 
and  corduroys,  looked  pitiably  lean  and  care-worn  by  the  side 
of  pauper  laborers,  wdio  showed  that  superior  assimilating 
power  often  observed  to  attend  nourishment  by  the  public 
money.  Mr.  Goffe,  of  Eabbit's  End,  had  never  had  it 
explained  to  him  that,  according  to  the  true  theory  of  rent, 
land  must  inevitably  be  given  up  when  it  would  not  yield 
a  profit  equal  to  the  ordinary  rate  of  interest;  so  that  from 
want  of  knowing  what  was  inevitable,  and  not  from  a 
Titanic  spirit  of  opposition,  he  kept  on  his  land.  He  often 
said  to  himself,  with  a  melancholy  wipe  of  his  sleeve  across 
his  brow,  that  he  "didn't  know  which-a-way  to  turn";  and 
he  would  have  been  still  more  at  a  loss  on  the  subject  if  he 
had  quitted  Eabbit's  End  with  a  wagonf ul  of  furniture  and 
utensils,  a  file  of  receipts,  a  wife  with  five  children,  and  a 
shepherd  dog  in  low  spirits. 

It  took  no  long  time  for  Harold  Transome  to  discover 
this  state  of  things,  and  to  see,  moreover,  that,  except  on 
the  demesne  immediately  around  the  house,  the  timber  had 


102  FELIX    HOLT, 

been  mismanaged.  The  woods  had  been  recklessly  thinned, 
and  there  hadbeen  insufficient  planting.  He  had  not  yet 
thoroughly  investigated  the  various  accounts  kept  by  his 
mother,  by  Jermyn,  and  by  Banks  the  bailiff;  but  what 
had  been  done  with  the  large  sums  which  had  been  received 
for  timber  was  a  suspicious  mystery  to  him.  He  observed 
that  the  farm  held  by  Jermyn  was  in  first-rate  order,  that 
a  good  deal  had  been  spent  on  the  buildings,  and  that  the 
'rent  had  stood  unpaid.  Mrs.  Trausome  had  taken  an 
opportunity  of  saying  that  Jermyn  had  had  some  of  the 
mortgage  deeds  transferred  to  him,  and  that  his  rent  was 
set  against  so  much  interest.  Harold  had  only  said,  in  his 
careless  yet  decisive  way,  ''Oh,  Jermyn  be  hanged!  It 
seems  to  me  if  Durfey  hadn't  died  and  made  room  for  me, 
Jermyn  would  have  ended  by  coming  to  live  here,  and  you 
would  have  had  to  keep  the  lodge  and  open  the  gate  for  his 
carriage.  But  I  shall  pay  him  off  —  mortgages  and  all  — 
bv-and-by.  I'll  owe  him  nothing — not  even  a  curse."  Mrs. 
^rransome  said  no  more.  Harold  did  not  care  to  enter 
fully  into  the  subject  with  his  mother.  The  fact  that  she 
had  been  active  in  the  management  of  the  estate — had  rid- 
den about  it  continually,  had  busied  herself  with  accounts, 
had  been  head-bailiff  "of  the  vacant  farms,  and  had  yet 
allowed  things  to  go  wrong — v/as  set  down  by  him  simply 
to  the  general  futility  of  women's  attempts  to  transact 
men's  business.  He  did  not  want  to  say  anything  to  annoy 
her:  he  was  only  determined  to  let  her  understand,  as  qui- 
etly as  possible,  that  she  had  better  cease  all  interference. 
Mrs.  Transome  did  understand  this;  and  it  was  very 
little  that  she  dared  to  say  on  business,  though  there  was 
a  fierce  struggle  of  her  anger  and  pride  with  a  dread  which 
was  nevertheless  supreme.  As  to  the  old  tenants,  she  only 
observed,  on  hearing  Harold  burst  forth  about  their 
wretched  condition,  "that  with  the  estate  so  burdened, 
the  yearly  loss  by  arrears  could  better  be  borne  than  the 
outlay  and  sacrifice  necessary  in  order  to  let  the  farms 


anew." 


C( 


I  was  really  capable  of  calculating,  Harold,"  she 
ended,  with  a  touch  of  bitterness.  "  It  seems  easy  to  deal 
with  farmers  and  their  affairs  when  you  only  see  them  in 
print,  I  dare  say;  but  it's  not  quite  so  easy  when  you  live 
among  them.  You  have  only  to  look  at  Sir  Maximus's 
estate:  you  will  see  plenty  of  "the  same  thing.  The  times 
have  been  dreadful,  and  old  families  like  to  keep  their  old 
tenants.     But  I  dare  say  that  is  Toryism." 


THE   RADICAL.  103 

"  It's  a  hash  of  odds  and  ends,  if  that  is  Toryism,  my 
dear  mother.  However,  I  wish  you  had  kept  three  more 
old  tenants;  for  then  I  should  have  had  three  more  fifty- 
pound  voters.  And,  in  a  hard  run.  one  may  be  beaten  by 
a  head.  But,"  Harold  added,  smiling  and  handing  her  a 
ball  of  worsted  which  had  fallen,  "a  woman  ought  to  be  a 
Tory,  and  graceful,  and  handsome,  like  you.  I  should 
hate  a  woman  who  took  up  my  opinions  and  talked  for  me. 
I'm  an  Oriental,  you  know.  I  say,  mother,  shall  we  have 
this  room  furnished  with  rose-color?  I  notice  that  it  suits 
your  bright  gray  hair." 

Harold  thought  it  was  only  natural  that  his  mother 
should  have  been  in  a  sort  of  subjection  to  Jermyn  through- 
out the  awkAvard  circumstances  of  the  family.  It  was  the 
way  of  women,  and  all  weak  minds,  to  think  that  what 
they  had  been  used  to  was  unalterable,  and  any  quarrel 
with  a  man  who  mantiged  private  affairs  was  necessarily  a 
formidable  thing.  He  himself  was  proceeding  very  cau- 
tiously, and  preferred  not  even  to  know  too  much  just  at 
present,  lest  a  certain  personal  antipathy  he  was  conscious 
of  toward  Jermyn,  and  an  occasional  liability  to  exaspera- 
tion, should  get  the  better  of  a  calm  and  clear-sighted 
resolve  not  to  quarrel  with  the  man  while  he  could  be  of 
use.  Harold  wouid  have  been  disgusted  with  himself  if  he 
had  helped  to  frustrate  his  own  purpose.  And  his  strong- 
est purpose  now  was  to  get  returned  for  Parliament,  to 
make  a  figure  there  as  a  Liberal  member,  and  to  become 
on  all  grounds  a  personage  of  weight  in  North  Loamshire. 

How  Harold  Transome  came  to  be  a  Liberal  in  opposi- 
tion to  all  the  traditions  of  his  family,  was  a  more  subtle 
inquiry  than  he  had  ever  cared  to  follow  out.  The  news- 
papers" undertook  to  explain  it.  The  "  North  Loamshire 
Herald"  witnessed  with  a  grief  and  disgust  certain  to  be 
shared  by  all  persons  who  were  actuated  by  wholesome 
British  feeling,  an  example  of  defection  in  the  inheritor 
of  a  family  name  which  in  times  past  had  been  associated 
with  attachment  to  right  principle,  and  with  the  mainte- 
nance of  our  constitution  in  Church  and  State;  and  pointed 
to  it  as  an  additional  proof  that  men  who  had  passed 
any  large  portion  of  their  lives  beyond  the  limits  of  our 
favored  country,  usually  contracted  not  only  a  laxity  of 
feeling  toward  Protestantism,  nay,  toward  religion  itself — a 
latitudinarian  spirit  hardly  distinguishable  from  atheism — 
but  also  a  levity  of  disposition,  inducing  them  to  tamper 
with  those  institutions  by  which  alone  Great  Britain  had 


104  FELIX  HOLT, 

risen  to  her  pre-eminence  among  the  nations.  Such  men, 
infected  with  outlandish  habits,  intoxicated  with  vanity, 
grasping  at  momentary  power  by  flattery  of  the  multitude, 
fearless  because  godless,  liberal  because  un-English,  were 
ready  to  pull  one  stone  from  under  another  in  the  national 
edifice,  till  the  great  structure  tottered  to  its  fall.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  ^'Duffield  AVatchman'*  saw  in  this  signal 
instance  of  self-liberation  from  the  trammels  of  prejudice, 
a  decisive  guarantee  of  intellectual  pre-eminence,  united 
with  a  generous  sensibility  to  the  claims  of  man  as  man, 
which  had  burst  asunder,  and  cast  off,  by  a  spontaneous 
exertion  of  energy,  the  cramping  out-worn  shell  of  hered- 
itary bias  and  class  interest. 

But  these  large-minded  guides  of  public  opinion  argued 
from  wider  data  than  could  be  furnished  by  any  knowledge 
of  the  particular  case  concerned.  Harold  Transome  was 
neither  the  dissolute  cosmopolitan  so  vigorously  sketched 
by  the  Tory  "Herald,"  nor  the  intellectual  giant  and  moral 
lobster  suggested  by  the  liberal  imagination  of  the  "  Watch- 
man." Twenty  years  ago  he  had  been  a  bright,  active, 
good-tempered  lad,  with  sharp  eyes  and  a  good  aim;  he 
delighted  in  success  and  in  predominance;  but  he  did  not 
long  for  an  impossible  predominance,  and  become  sour 
and  sulky  because  it  was  impossible.  •  He  played  at  the 
games  he  was  clever  in,  and  usually  won;  all  other  games 
he  let  alone,  and  thought  them  of  little  worth.  At  home 
and  at  Eton  he  had  been  side  by  side  with  his  stupid  elder 
brother  Durfey,  whom  he  despised;  and  he  very  early 
began  to  reflect  that  since  this  Caliban  in  miniature  was 
older  than  himself,  he  must  carve  out  his  own  fortune. 
That  was  a  nuisance;  and  on  the  whole  the  world  seemed 
rather  ill-arranged,  at  Eton  especially,  where  there  were 
many  reasons  why  Harold  made  no  great  figure.  He  was 
not  sorry  the  money  was  wanting  to  send  him  to  Oxford; 
he  did  not  seethe  good  of  Oxford;  he  liad  been  surrounded 
by  many  things  during  his  short  life,  of  which  he  had  dis- 
tinctly said  to  himself  that  he  did  not  see  the  good,  and  he 
was  not  disposed  to  venerate  on  the  strength  of  any  good 
that  others  saw.  He  turned  his  back  on  home  very  cheer- 
fully, though  he  was  rather  fond  of  his  mother,  and  very 
fond  of  Transome  Court,  and  the  river  where  he  had  been 
used  to  fish;  but  he  said  to  himself  as  he  passed  the  lodge- 
gates,  "I'll  get  rich  somehow,  and  have  an  estate  of  my 
own,  and  do  what  I  like  with  it."  This  determined  aim- 
ing at  something  not  easy  but  clearly  possible,  marked  the 


THE    EADICAL.  105 

direction  in  which  Harold's  nature  was  strong;  he  had  the 
energetic  will  and  muscle,  the  self-confidence,  the  quick 
perception,  and  the  narrow  imagination  which  make  what 
is  admiringly  called  the  practical  mind. 

Since  then  his  character  had  been  ripened  by  a  various 
experience,  and  also  by  much  knowledge  Avhich  he  had 
set  himself  deliberately  to  gain.  But  the  man  was  no 
more  than  the  boy  writ  large,  witii  an  extensive  commen- 
tary. The  years  had  nourislied  an  inclination  to  as  much 
opposition  as  would  enable  him  to  assert  his  own  indejoend- 
ence  and  power  without  throwing  himself  into  that  tabooed 
condition  which  robs  jjower  of  its  triumph.  And  this  incli- 
nation had  helped  his  shrewdness  in  forming  judgments 
which  were  at  once  innovating  and  moderate.  He  was 
addicted  at  once  to  rebellion  and  to  conformity,  and  only 
an  intimate  personal  knowledge  could  enable  any  one  to 
predict  where  his  conformity  would  begin.  The  limit  was 
not  defined  by  theory,  but  was  drawn  in  an  irregular  zigzag 
by  early  disposition  and  association;  and  his  resolution,  of 
which  he  had  never  lost  hold,  to  be  a  thorough  Englishman 
again  some  day,  had  kept  up  the  habit  of  considering  all 
his  conclusions  with  reference  to  English  politics  and 
English  social  conditions.  He  meant  to  stand  up  for  every 
change  that  the  economical  condition  of  the  country 
required,  and  he  had  an  angry  contempt  for  men  with  coro- 
nets on  their  coaches,  but  too  small  a  share  of  brains  to  see 
when  they  had  better  make  a  virtue  of  necessity.  His 
respect  was  rather  for  men  Avho  had  no  coronets,  but  who 
achieved  a  just  influence  by  furthering  all  measures  which 
the  common-sense  of  the  country,  and  the  increasing  self- 
assertion  of  the  majority,  peremptorily  demanded.  '  He 
could  be  such  a  man  himself. 

In  fact  Harold  Transome  was  a  clever,  frank,  good- 
natared  egoist;  not  stringently  consistent,  but  without 
any  disposition  to  falsity;  proud,,  but  with  a  pride  that  was 
moulded  in  an  individual  rather  than  an  hereditary  form; 
unspeculative,  unsentimental,  unsympathefic;  fond  of 
sensual  pleasures,  but  disinclined  to  all  vice,  and  attaclied 
as  a  healthy,  clear-sighted  person,  to  all  conventional  mor- 
ality, construed  with  a  certain  freedom,  like  doctrinal 
articles  to  which  the  public  order  may  require  subscriiJtion. 
A  character  is  apt  to  look  but  indifferently,  written  out  in. 
this  way.  Reduced  to  a  maji,  our  premises  seem  insiginfi- 
eant,  but  they  make,  nevertheless,  a  very  pretty  freehold 
to  live  in  and  walkover;  and  so,  if  Harold  Transome  had 


106  FELIX   HOLT, 

been  among  your  acquaintances,  and  you  had  observed 
his  qualities  through  the  medium  of  his  agreeable  person, 
bright  smile,  and  a  certain  easy  charm  which  accompanies 
sen'suousness  when  unsullied  by  coarseness — through  the 
medium  also  of  the  many  opportunities  in  which  he  would 
have  made  himself  useful  or  pleasant  to  you — you  would 
have  thought  him  a  good  fellow,  highly  acceptable  as  a 
guest,  a  colleague,  or  a  brother-in-law.  Whether  all  moth- 
ers would  have  liked  him  as  a  son  is  another  question. 

It  is  a  fact  perhaps  kept  a  little  too  much  in  the  back- 
ground, that  mothers  have  a  self  larger  than  their  mater- 
nity, and  that  when  their  sons  have  become  taller  than 
themselves,  and  are  gone  from  them  to  college  or  into  the 
world,  there  are  wide  spaces   of  their  time  which  are  not 
filled  with  praying  for  their  boys,  reading  old  letters,  and 
envying  yet  blessing  those  who  are  attending  to  their  shirt- 
buttons.     Mrs.  Transome  was  certainly  not  one  of  those 
bland,  adoring,  and  gently  tearful  women.     After  sharing 
the  common  dream  that  when  a  beautiful  man-child  was 
born  to  her,  her  cup  of  happiness  would  be  full,  she  had 
traveled  through  long  years  apart  from  that  child  to  find 
herself  at  lastln  the  presence  of  a  son  of  whom  she  was 
afraid,  who  was  utterly  unmanageable  by  her,  and  to  whose 
sentiments  in  any  given  case  she  possessed  no  key.    _Yet 
Harold  was  a  kind  son:  he  kissed  his  mother's  brow,  offered 
her  his  arm,  let  her  choose  what  she  liked  for  the  house 
and  garden,  asked  her  whether  she  would  have  bays  or 
grays  for  her  new  carriage,  and  was  bent  on  seeing  her 
make  as  good  a  figure  in  the  neighborhood  as  any  other 
woman  of  her  rank.     She  trembled  under  this  kindness: 
it  was  not  enough  to  satisfy  her;  still,  if  it  should  ever 
cease  and  give  place  to  something  else — she  was  too  uncer- 
tain about  Harold's  feelings  to  imagine  clearly  Avhat  that 
something  would  be.     The'finest  threads,  such  as  no  eye 
sees,  if  bound  cunningly  ahout  the  sensitive  flesh,  so  that. 
the  movement  to  break   them  would  bring  torture,  may 
make  a  worse  bondage  than  any  fetters.     Mrs.  Transome 
felt  the  fatal  threads'about  her,  and  the  bitterness  of  this 
helpless  bondage  mingled  itself  with  the  new  elegancies  of 
the   dining   and    drawing-rooms,   and   all   the   household 
changes  which  Harold  had  ordered  to  be  brought  about 
with   magical   quickness.     Nothing  was  as  she  had  once 
expected  it  would  be.     If  Harold  had  shown  the  least  care 
to  have  her  stay  in  the  room  with  him — if  he  had  really 
cared   for  her   opinion — if    he  had   been  what   she  had 


THE   RADICAL.  107 

dreamed  he  would  be  in  the  eyes  of  those  people  who  had 
made  her  world — if  all  the  past  could  be  dissolved,  and 
leave  no  solid  trace  of  itself — mighty  ifs  that  were  all 
impossible — she  would  have  tasted  some  joy;  but  now  she 
began  to  look  back  with  regret  to  the  days  when  she  sat  in 
loneliness  among  the  old  drapery,  and  still  longed_  for 
something  that  might  happen.  Yet,  save  in  a  bitter  little 
speech,  or  in  a  deep  sigh,  heard  by  no  one  besides  Denner, 
she  kept  n\  these  things  hidden  in  her  heart,  and  went  out 
in  the  autnmn  sunshine  to  overlook  the  alterations  in  the 
pleasure-grounds  very  much  as  a  happy  woman  might  have 
done.  One  daj,  however,  when  she  was  occupied  in  this 
way,  an  occasion  came  on  Avhich  she  chose  to  express  indi- 
rectly a  part  of  b^^r  inward  care. 

She  was  standing  on  the  broad  gravel  in  the  afternoon ; 
the  long  shadows  lay  on  the  grass;  the  light  seemed  the 
more  glorious  because  of  the  reddened  and  golden  trees. 
The  gardeners  were  busy  at  their  pleasant  work;  the 
newly-turned  soil  gave  out  an  agreeable  fragrance;  and 
little  Harry  was  playing  with  Nimrod  round  old  Mr. 
Trahsome,  who  sat  placidly  on  a  low  garden-chair.  The 
scene  would  have  made  a  charming  picture  of  English 
domestic  life,  and  the  handsome,  majestic,  gray-haired 
woman  (obviously  grandmamma)  would  have  been  espe- 
cially admired.  But  the  artist  would  have  felt  it  requisite 
to  turn  her  face  toward  her  husband  and  little  grandson, 
and  to  have  given  her  an  elderly  amiability  of  expression 
which  would  have  divided  remark  with  his  exquisite  ren- 
dering of  her  Indian  shawl.  Mrs.  Transome's  face  was 
turned  the  other  way,  and  for  this  reason  she  only  heard 
an  approaching  step,  and  did  not  see  whose  it  was;  yet  it 
startled  her:  it  was  not  quick  enough  to  be  her  son's  step, 
and  besides,  Harold  was  away  at  Dufifield.  It  was  Mr. 
Jermyn's. 


108  FELIX   HOLT, 


CHAPTEE  IX. 

"A  woman,  naturally  bom  to  tears."— King  John. 

"  Methinks, 
Some  unborn  sorrow,  ripe  in  fortune's  womb. 
Is  coming-  toward  me ;  and  my  Inward  soul 
With  nothing  tvembles."— King  Richard  II. 

Matthew  Jermyjst  approached  Mrs.  Transome  taking  off 
his  hat  and  smiling.     She  did  not  smile,  but  said  — 

''Yon  knew  Harold  was  not  at  home?" 

"  Yes;  I  came  to  see  you,  to  know  if  you  had  any  wishes 
that  I  could  further,  since  I  have  not  had  an  opportunity 
of  consulting  you  since  he  came  home." 

''Let  us  walk  toward  the  Eookery,  then." 

They  turned  together,  Mr.  Jermyn  still  keeping  his  hat 
off  and  holding  it  behind  him;  the  air  was  so  soft  and 
agreeable  that  iMrs.  Transome  herself  had  nothing  but  a 
large  veil  over  her  head. 

Thev  walked  for  a  little  while  in  silence  till  they  were 
out  of  sight,  under  tall  trees,  and  treading  noiselessly  on 
falling  leaves.  What  Jermyn  was  really  most  anxious 
about,  was  to  learn  from  Mrs.  Transome  whether  anything 
had  transpired  that  was  significant  of  Harold's  disposition 
toward  him,  which  he  suspected  to  be  very  far  from 
friendly.  Jermj'-n  was  not  naturally  flinty-hearted:  at  five- 
and-twenty  he  had  written  verses,  and  had  got  himself  wet 
through  in  order  not  to  disappoint  a  dark-eyed  woman 
whom  he  was  proud  to  believe  in  love  with  him;  but  a 
family  man  with  grown  up  sons  and  daughters,  a  man 
with  a  professional  position  and  complicated  affairs  that 
make  it  hard  to  ascertain  the  exact  relation  between  prop- 
erty and  liabilities,  necessarily  thinks  of  himself  and  what 
may  be  impending. 

''  Harold  is  remarkably  acute  and  clever, ''  he  began  at 
last,  since  Mrs.  Transome  did  not  speak.  "If  he  gets 
into  Parliament,  I  have  no  doubt  he  will  distinguish  him- 
self.    He  has  a  quick  eye  for  business  of  all  kinds." 

"  That  is  no  comfort 'to  me,"  said  Mrs.  Transome.  To- 
day she  was  more  conscious  than  usual  of  that  bitterness 
which  was  always  in  her  mind  in  Jermyn's  presence,  but 
which  was  carefully  suppressed: — suppressed  because  she 
could  not  endure  that  the  degradation  she  inAvardly  felt 
should  ever  become  visible  or  audible  in  acts  or  words  of 


THE   EADICAL.  109 

her  own — should  ever  be  reflected  in  any  word  or  look  of 
his.  For  years  there  had  been  a  deep  silence  about  the 
past  between  them:  on  her  side,  because  she  remembered; 
on  his,  because  he  more  and  more  forgot. 

"  I  trust  he  is  not  unkind  to  you  in  any  way.  I  know 
his  opinions  pain  you;  but  I  trust  you  find  him  in  every- 
thing else  disposed  to  be  a  good  son." 

"  Oh,  to  be  sure — good  as  men  are  disposed  to  be  to 
women,  giving  them  cushions  and  carriages,  and  recom- 
mending them  to  enjoy  themselves,  and  then  expecting 
them  to  be  contented  under  contempt  and  neglect.  I  have 
no  power  over  him — remember  that — none."' 

Jermyn  turned  to  look  in  Mrs.  Transome^s  face:  it  was 
long  since  he  had  heard  her  speak  to  him  as  if  she  were 
losing  her  self-command. 

"  Has  he  shown  any  unpleasant  feeling  about  your 
management  of  affairs?" 

"My  management  of  affairs! "  Mrs.  Transome  said,  with 
concentrated  rage,  flashing  a  fierce  look  at  Jermyn.  She 
checked  herself:  she  felt  as  if  she  were  lighting  a  torch  to 
flare  on  her  own  past  folly  and  misery.  It  was  a  resolve 
which  had  become  a  habit,  that  she  would  never  quarrel 
with  this  man — never  tell  him  what  she  saw  him  to  be. 
She  had  kept  her  woman's  pride  and  sensibility  intact: 
through  all  her  life  there  had  vibrated  the  maiden  need  to 
have  her  hand  kissed  and  be  the  object  of  chivalry.  And 
so  she  sank  into  silence  again,  trembling. 

Jermyn  felt  annoyed — nothing  more.  There  was  noth- 
ing in  his  mind  corresponding  to  the  intricate  meshes  of 
sensitiveness  in  Mrs.  Transome's.  He  was  anything  but 
stupid;  yet  he  always  blundered  when  he  wanted  to  be 
delicate  or  magnanimous;  he  constantly  sought  to  soothe 
others  by  praising  himself.  Moral  vulgarity  cleaved  to  him 
like  an  hereditary  odor.     He  blundered  now. 

''My  dear  Mrs.  Transome,"  he  said,  in  a  tone  of  bland 
kindness,  ''you  are  agitated — you  appear  angry  with  me. 
Yet  I  think,  if  you  consider,  you  will  see  that  you  have 
nothing  to  complain  of  in  me,  unless  you  will  complain  of 
the  inevitable  course  of  man's  life.  I  have  always  met 
your  wishes  both  in  happy  circumstances  and  in  unhappy 
ones.     I  should  be  ready  to  do  so  now,  if  it  were  possible." 

Every  sentence  was  as  pleasant  to  her  as  if  it  had  been 
cut  in  her  bared  arm.  Some  men's  kindness  and  love- 
making  are  more  exasperating,  more  humiliating  than 
others'  derision;   but  the  pitiable  woman   who  has  once 


110  FELIX    HOLT, 

made  herself  secretly  dependent  on  a  man  who  is  beneath 
her  in  feeling,  must  bear  that  humiliation  for  fear  of 
worse.  Coarse  kindness  is  at  least  better  than  coarse 
anger;  and  in  all  private  quarrels  the  duller  nature  is  tri- 
umphant by  reason  of  its  dullness.  Mrs.  Transome  knew 
in  her  inmost  soul  that  those  relations  which  had  sealed 
her  lips  on  Jermyn's  conduct  in  business  matters^  had  been 
Avith  him  a  ground  for  presuming  that  he  should  have 
impunity  in  any  lax  dealing  into  Avhich  circumstances  had 
led  him.  She  knew  that  she  herself  had  endured  all  the 
more  privation  because  of  his  dishonest  selfishness.  And 
now,  Harold's  long-deferred  heirship,  and  his  return  with 
startlingly  unexpected  penetration,  activity,  and  assertion 
of  mastery,  had  placed  them  both  in  the  full  presence  of 
a  difficulty  which  had  been  prepared  by  the  years  of  vague 
uncertainty  as  to  issues.  In  this  position,  with  a  great 
dread  hanging  over  her,  which  Jermyn  knew,  and  ought 
to  have  felt  that  he  had  caused  her,  she  was  inclined  to 
lash  him  with  indignation,  to  scorch  him  with  the  words 
that  were  just  the  fit  names  for  his  doings — inclined  all 
the  more  when  he  spoke  with  an  insolent  blandness,  ignor- 
ing all  that  was  truly  in  her  heart.  But  no  sooner  did  the 
words  "'You  have  brought  it  on  me"  rise  within  her  than 
she  heard  within  also  the  retort,  "You  brought  it  on 
yourself.'"  Not  for  all  the  world  beside  could  she  bear  to 
hear  that  retort  uttered  from  without.  What  did  she  do? 
With  strange  sequence  to  all  that  rapid  tumult,  after  a  few 
moments'  silence  she  said — 

"Let  me  take  your  arm." 

He  gave  it  immediately,  putting  on  his  hat  and  won- 
dering. For  more  than  twenty  years  Mrs.  Transome  had 
never  chosen  to  take  his  arm. 

"I  have  but  one  thing  to  ask.     Make  me  a  promise." 

"What  is  it?" 

"  That  you  will  never  quarrel  with  Harold." 

"  You  must  know  that  it  is  my  wish  not  to  quarrel  with 
him." 

"But  make  a  vow — fix  it  in  your  mind  as  a  thing  not  to 
be  done.  Bear  anything  from  him  rather  than  quarrel 
with  him." 

"A  man  can't  make  a  vow  not  to  quarrel,"  said  Jermyn, 
who  was  already  a  little  irritated  by  the  implication  that 
Harold  might  be  disposed  to  use  him  roughly.  "  A  man's 
temper  may  get  the  better  of  him  at  any  moment.  I  am 
not  prepared  to  bear  anything," 


THE   RADICAL.  Ill 

"Good  God!*'  said  Mrs.  Transome,  taking  her  hand 
from  his  arm,  "is  it  possible  you  don't  feel  how  horrible  it 
would  be?^' 

As  she  took  away  her  hand,  Jermyn  let  his  arm  fall, 
put  both  his  hands  in  his  pockets,  and  shrugging  his 
shoulders  said,  "'  I  shall  use  him  as  he  uses  me/' 

Jermyn  had  turned  round  his  savage  side,  and  the 
blandness  was  out  of  sight.  It  was  this  that  had  always 
frightened  Mrs.  Transome:  there  was  a  possibility  of  fierce 
insolence  in  this  man  who  was  to  pass  with  those  nearest 
to  her  as  her  indebted  servant,  but  whose  brand  she 
secretly  bore.  She  was  as  powerless  with  him  as  she  was 
with  her  son. 

This  woman,  who  loved  rule,  dared  not  speak  another 
word  of  attempted  persuasion.  They  were  both  silent, 
taking  the  nearest  way  into  the  sunshine  again.  There 
Avas  a  half -formed  wish  in  both  their  minds — even  in  the 
mother's — that  Harold  Transome  had  never  been  born. 

"We  are  working  hard  for  the  election,-"  said  Jermyn, 
recovering  himself,  as  they  turned  into  the  sunshine  again. 
"I  think  we  shall  get  him  returned,  and  in  that  case  he 
will  be  in  high  good-humor.  Everything  will  be  more 
propitious  than  you  are  apt  to  think.  You  must  persuade 
yourself,"  he  added,  smiling  at  her,  "that  it  is  better  for 
a  man  of  his  position  to  be  in  Parliament  on  the  wrong 
side  than  not  to  be  in  at  all." 

"Never,"  said  Mrs.  Transome.  "I  am  too  old  to  learn 
to  call  bitter  sweet  and  sweet  bitter.  But  what  I  may 
think  or  feel  is  of  no  consequence  now.  I  am  as  unneces- 
sary as  a  chimney  ornament." 

And  in  this  way  they  parted  on  the  gravel,  in  that 
pretty  scene  where  they  had  met.  Mrs.  Transome  shiv- 
ered as  she  stood  alone:  all  around  her,  where  there  had 
once  been  brightness  and  warmth,  there  were  white  ashes, 
and  the  sunshine  looked  dreary  as  it  fell  on  them. 

Mr.  Jermyn's  heaviest  reflections  in  riding  homeward 
turned  on  the  possibility  of  incidents  between  himself  and 
Harold  Transome  Avhich  Avould  have  disagreeable  results, 
requiring  him  to  raise  money,  and  perhaps  causing  scan- 
dal, which  in  its  way  might  also  help  to  create  a  monetary 
deficit.  A  man  of  sixty,  with  a  wife  whose  Duffield  con- 
nections were  of  the  highest  respectability,  with  a  family 
of  tall  daughters,  an  expensive  establishment,  and  a  large 
professional  business,  owed  a  great  deal  more  to  himself 
as  the  mainstay  of  all  those  solidities,  than  to  feelings  and 


113  FELIX   HOLT, 

ideas  which  were  quite  unsubstantiaL  There  were  many 
unfortunate  coincidences  which  phiced  Mr.  Jermyn  in  an 
uncomfortable  position  just  now;  he  had  not  been  much 
to  blame,  he  considered;  if  it  had  not  been  for  a  sudden 
turn  of  affairs  no  one  would  have  complained.  He  defied 
any  man  to  say  that  he  had  intended  to  wrong  people;  he 
was  able  to  refund,  to  make  rejDrisals,  if  they  could  be 
fairly  demanded.  Only  he  would  certainly  have  preferred 
that  they  should  not  be  demanded. 

A  Grerman  poet  was  intrusted  with  a  particularly  fine 
sausage,  which  he  was  to  convey  to  the  donor's  friend  at 
Paris.  In  the  course  of  a  long  journey  he  smelled  the  sau- 
sage; he  got  hungry,  and  desired  to  taste  it;  he  pared  a 
morsel  off,  then  another,  and  another,  in  successive 
moments  of  temptation,  till  at  last  the  sausage  was, 
humanly  speaking,  at  an  end.  The  offense  had  not  been 
premeditated.  The  poet  had  never  loved  meanness,  but 
he  loved  sausage;  and  the  result  was  undeniably  awkward. 

So  it  was  with  Matthew  Jermyn.  He  was  far  from 
liking  that  ugly  abstraction  rascality,  but  he  had  liked 
other  things  which  had  suggested  nibbling.  He  had  had  to 
do  many  things  in  law  and  in  daily  life  which,  in  the 
abstract,  he  would  have  condemned;  and  indeed  he  had 
never  been  tempted  by  them  in  the  abstract.  Here,  in 
fact,  was  the  inconvenience:  he  had  sinned  for  the  sake  of 
jDarticular  concrete  things,  and  particular  concrete  con- 
sequences were  likely  to  follow. 

But  he  was  a  man  of  resolution,  who,  having  made  out 
what  was  the  best  course  to  take  under  a  difficulty,  went 
straight  to  his  work.  The  election  must  be  won:  that 
would  put  Harold  in  good  humor,  give  him  something  to 
do,  and  leave  himself  more  time  to  prepare  for  any  crisis. 

He  was  in  anything  but  low  spirits  that  evening.  It 
was  his  eldest  daughter's  birthday,  and  the  young  people 
had  a  dance.  Papa  was  delightful  —  stood  ujd  for  a  quad- 
rille and  a  country-dance,  told  stories  at  supper,  and  made 
humorous  quotations  from  his  early  readings :  if  these  were 
Latin,  he  apologized,  and  translated  to  the  ladies;  so  that 
a  deaf  lady-visitor  from  Duffield  kept  her  trumpet  up 
continually,  lest  she  should  lose  any  of  Mr.  Jermj^n's  con- 
versation, and  wished  that  her  niece  Maria  had  been 
present,  who  was  young  and  had  a  good  memory. 

Still  the  party  was  smaller  than  usual,  for  some  families 
in  Treby  refused  to  visit  Jermyn  now  that  he  was  con- 
cerned for  a  Kadical  candidate. 


THE    RADICAL.  113 


CHAPTER  X. 

"  He  made  love  neither  with  roses,  nor  with  apples,  nor  with  locks  of 
hair."— Theocritus. 

One  Sunday  afternoon  Felix  Holt  rapped  at  the  door  of 
Mr.  L3'on's  house,  although  he  could  hear  the  voice  of  the 
minister  preaching  in  the  chapel.  He  stood  with  a  book 
under  his  arm.  apparently  confident  that  there  was  some 
one  in  the  house  to  open  the  door  for  him.  In  fact, 
Esther  never  went  to  chapel  in  the  afternoon:  that 
"exercise"  made  her  head  ache. 

In  these  September  weeks  Felix  had  got  rather  intimate 
with  Mr.  Lyon.  They  shared  the  same  political  sympa- 
thies; and  though,  to  Liberals  who  had  neither  freehold 
nor  copyhold  nor  leasehold,  the  share  in  a  county  election 
consisted  chiefly  of  that  prescriptive  amusement  of  the 
majority  known  as  "looking  on,''  there  was  still  some- 
thing to  be  said  on  the  occasion,  if  not  to  be  done. 
Perhaps  the  most  delightful  friendships  are  those  in  which 
there  is  much  agreement,  much  disputation,  and  yet  more 
personal  liking;  and  the  advent  of  the  public-spirited, 
contradictory,  yet  affectionate  Felix,  into  Treby  life,  had 
made  a  welcome  epoch  to  the  minister.  To  talk  with 
this  young  man,  who,  though  hopeful,  had  a  singularity 
which  some  might  at  once  have  pronounced  heresy,  but 
which  Mr.  Lyon  persisted  in  regarding  as  orthodoxy  "in 
the  making,"  was  like  a  good  bite  to  strong  teeth  after  a 
too  plentiful  allowance  of  spoon  meat.  To  cultivate  his 
society  with  a  view  to  checking  his  erratic  tendencies  was 
a  laudable  purpose;  but  perhaps  if  Felix  had  been  rapidly 
subdued  and  reduced  to  conformity,  little  Mr.  Lyon  would 
have  found  the  conversation  much  flatter. 

Esther  had  not  seen  so  much  of  their  new  acquaintance 
as  her  father  had.  But  she  had  begun  to  find  him  amus- 
ing, and  also  rather  irritating  to  lier  woman's  love  of 
conquest.  He  always  opposed  and  criticised  her;  and 
besides  that,  he  looked  at  her  as  if  he  never  saw  a  single 
detail  about  her  person — quite  as  if  she  were  a  middle- 
aged  woman  in  a  cap.  She  did  not  believe  that  he  had 
ever  admired  her  hands,  or  her  long  neck,  or  her  graceful 
movements,  wliich  liad  made  all  tlie  girls  at  school  call  her 
Calypso  (doubtless  from  their  familiarity  with  "Tele- 
maque.")     Felix  ought  properly  to  have  been  a  little  in 


114  FELIX    HOLT, 

love  with  her  —  never  mentioning  it,  of  course,  because 
that  would  have  been  disagreeable,  and  his  being  a  regular 
lover  was  out  of  the  question.  But  it  was  quite  clear  that, 
instead  of  feeling  any  disadvantage  ou  his  own  side,  he 
held  himself  to  be  immeasurablj"  her  superior:  and,  what 
was  worse,  Esther  had  a  secret  consciousness  that  he  was 
her  superior.  She  was  all  the  more  vexed  at  the  suspicion 
that  he  thouglit  slightly  of  her;  and  wished  in  her  vexa- 
tion that  she  could  have  found  more  fault  with  him — that 
she  had  not  been  obliged  to  admire  more  and  more  the 
varying  expressions  of  his  open  face  and  his  deliciously 
good-humored  laugh,  always  loud  at  a  joke  against  him- 
self. Besides,  she  could  not  help  having  her  curiosity 
roused  by  the  unusual  combinations  both  in  his  mind  and 
in  his  outward  j^osition,  and  she  had  surprised  herself  as 
well  as  her  father  one  day  by  suddenly  starting  up  and 
proposing  to  walk  with  him  when  he  was  going  to  pay  an 
afternoon  visit  to  Mrs.  Holt,  to  try  and  soothe  her  con- 
cerning Felix.  "What  a  mother  he  has!"  she  said  to  her- 
self when  they  came  away  again;  "but,  rude  and  queer  as 
he  is,  I  cannot  sa}'  there  is  anything  vulgar  about  him. 
Yet — I  don't  know — if  I  saw  him  by  the  side  of  a  finished 
gentlema"n."  Esther  wished  that  finished  gentleman  were 
among  her  acquaintances:  he  would  certainly  admire  her, 
and  make  her  aware  of  Felix's  inferiority. 

On  this  particular  Sunday  afternoon,  when  she  heard  the 
knock  at  the  door,  she  was  seated  in  the  kitchen  corner 
between  the  fire  and  the  window  reading  "Rene."  Cer- 
tainly in  her  well-fitting  light-blue  dress  —  she  almost 
always  wore  some  shade  of  blue — with  her  delicate  san- 
daled slipper  stretched  toward  the  fire,  her  little  gold 
watch,  which  had  cost  her  nearly  a  quarter's  earnings, 
visible  at  her  side,  her  slender  fingers  playing  with  a 
shower  of  brown  curls,  and  a  coronet  of  shining  plaits, 
at  the  summit  of  her  head,  she  was  a  remarkable  Cinder- 
ella. When  the  rap  came,  she  colored,  and  was  going  to 
shut  her  book  and  put  it  out  of  the  way  on  the  window- 
ledge  behind  her;  but  she  desisted  with  a  little  toss,  laid  it 
open  on  the  table  beside  her,  and  walked  to  the  outer 
door,  which  opened  into  the  kitchen.  There  Avas  rather  a 
mischievous  gleam  in  her  face:  the  rap  was  not  a  small 
one;  it  came  probably  from  a  large  personage  with  a  vigor- 
ous arm. 

"  Good  afternoon,  Miss  Lyon."  said  Felix,  taking  off  his 
cloth  cap:  he  resolutely  declined  the  expensive  ugliness  of 


THE   RADICAL.  115 

a  hat,  and  in  a  poked  cap  and  without  a  cravat,  made 
a  figure  at  which  his  mother  cried  every  Sunday,  and 
thought  of  with  a  slow  shake  of  the  head  at  several  passages 
in  the  minister's  prayer, 

''Dear  me,  it  is  you,  Mr.  Holt!  I  fear  you  will  have  to 
wait  some  time  before  you  can  see  my  father.  The  sermon 
is  not  ended  yet,  and  there  will  be  the  hymn  and  the 
prayer,  and  perhaps  other  things  to  detain  him.'' 

•'Well,  will  you  let  me  sit  down  in  the  kitchen?  I  don't 
want  to  be  a  bore." 

"Oh,  no,"  said  Esther,  Avith  her  pretty  light  laugh, 
"I  always  give  you  credit  for  not  meaning  it.  Pray 
come  in,  if  you  don't  mind  waiting.  I  was  sitting  in 
the  kitchen:  the  kettle  is  singing  quite  prettily.  It  is 
much  nicer  than  the  parlor  —  not  half  so  ugly." 

"There  I  agree  with  you." 

"How  very  extraordinary!  But  if  you  prefer  the 
kitchen,  and  don't  want  to  sit  with  me,  I  can  go  into 
the  parlor." 

"  I  came  on  purpose  to  sit  with  you,"  said  Felix,  in  his 
blunt  way,  "  but  I  thought  it  likely  you  might  be  vexed  at 
seeing  me.  I  wanted  to  talk  to  you,  but  I've  got  nothing 
pleasant  to  say.  As  your  father  would  have  it,  I'm  not 
given  to  propli^esy  smooth  things  —  to  prophesy  deceit." 

"  I  understand,"  said  Esther,  sitting  down.  "  Pray  be 
seated.  You  thought  I  had  no  afternoon  sermon,  so  you 
came  to  give  me  one." 

"Yes,"  said  Felix,  seating  himself  sideways  in  a  chair 
not  far  off  her,  and  leaning  over  the  back  to  look  at  her 
with  his  large,  clear,  gray  eyes,  "and  my  text  is  something 
you  said  the  other  day.  You  said  you  "didn't  mind  about 
people  having  right  opinions  so  that  they  had  good  taste. 
Xow  I  want  you  to  see  what  shallow  stuff  that  is." 

"  Oh,  I  don't  doubt  if  you  say  so.  I  know  you  are  a 
person  of  right  opinions." 

"  But  by  opinions  you  mean  men's  thoughts  about  great 
subjects,  and  by  taste  you  mean  their  thoughts  about  small 
ones:  dress,  behavior,  amusements,  ornaments." 

'' "Well  —  yes  —  or  rather,  their  sensiliilities  about  those 
things." 

"It  comes  to  the  same  thing;  thoughts,  opinions,  know! 
edge,  are  only  a  sensibility  to  facts  and  ideas.  If  I  under- 
stand a  geometrical  problem,  it  is  because  I  have  a  sensi- 
bility to  the  way  in  which  lines  and  figures  are  related  to 
each  other;  and  I  want  you  to  see  that  the  creature  who 


116  FELIX    HOLT, 

has  tlie  sensibilities  that  you  call  taste,  and  not  the  sensi- 
bilities that  yon  call  opinions,  is  simply  a  lower,  pettier 
sort  of  being  —  an  insect  that  notices  the  shaking  of  the 
table,  but  never  notices  the  thunder." 

"Very  v^ell,  I  am  an  insect;  yet  I  notice  that  you  are 
thundering  at  me." 

"No,  you  are  not  an  insect.  That  is  what  exasperates 
me  at  your  making  a  boast  of  littleness.  You  have 
enough  understanding  to  make  it  wicked  that  you  should 
add  one  more  to  the  women  who  hinder  men's  lives  from 
having  any  nobleness  in  them." 

Esther  colored  deeply:  she  resented  this  speech,  yet  she 
disliked  it  less  than  many  Felix  had  addressed  to  her. 

"What  is  my  horrible  guilt?"  she  said,  rising  and 
standing,  as  she  was  wont,  with  one  foot  on  the  fender, 
and  looking  at  the  fire.  If  it  had  been  any  one  but 
Felix  who  was  near  her,  it  might  have  occurred  to  her 
that  this  attitude  showed  her  to  advantage;  but  she  had 
only  a  mortified  sense  that  he  was  quite  indifferent  to 
what  others  praised  her  for. 

"Why  do  you  read  this  mawkish  stuff  on  a  Sundaj^ 
for  example?"  he  said,  snatching  up  "Rene,"  and  run- 
ning his  eye  over  the  pages. 

"Why  don't  you  always  go  to  chapel,  Mr.  Holt,  and 
read  Howe's  'Living  Temple,'  and  join  the  Church?" 

"There's  just  the  difference  between  us — I  know  why 
I  don't  do  tliose  things.  I  distinctly  see  that  I  can  do 
something  better.  I  have  other  principles,  and  should 
sink  myself  by  doing  what  I  don't  recognize  as  the  best." 

"I  understand,"  said  Esther,  as  lightly  as  she  could,  to 
conceal  her  bitterness.  "  I  am  a  lower  kind  of  being,  and 
could  not  so  easily  sink  myself." 

"Not  by  entering  into  your  father's  ideas.  If  a  woman 
really  believes  herself  to  be  a  lower  kind  of  being,  she 
should  place  herself  in  subjection:  she  should  be  ruled  by 
tlie  thoughts  of  her  father  or  husband.  If  not,  let  her 
show  her  power  of  choosing  something  better.  You  must 
know  that  your  father's  principles  are  greater  and  worthier 
than  what  guides  your  life.  You  have  no  reason  but  idle 
fancy  and  selfish  inclination  for  shirking  his  teaching  and 
giving  your  soul  up  to  trifles." 

"You  are  kind  enough  to  say  so.  But  I  am  not  aware 
that  I  have  ever  confided  my  reasons  to  you." 

"Why,  what  worth  calling  a  reason  could  make  any 
mortal  hangover  this  trash?  —  idiotic  immorality  dressed 


THE   RADICAL.  117 

up  to  look  fine,  with  a  little  bit  of  doctrine  tacked  to  it, 
like  a  hare's  foot  on  a  dish,  to  make  believe  the  mess  is 
not  cat's  flesh.  Look  here!  'Est-ce  ma  faute,  si  je 
trouve  partout  les  bornes,  si  ce  qui  est  fini  n'a  pour  moi 
aucune  valeur?'  Yes,  sir,  distinctly  your  fault,  because 
you're  an  ass.  Your  dunce  who  can't  do  his  sums  always 
has  a  taste  for  the  infinite.  Sir,  do  you  know  what  a 
rhomboid  is?  Oh,  no,  I  don't  value  these  things  with 
limits.  'Cependant,  j'aime  la  monotonie  des  sentimens 
de  la  vie,  et  si  j'avais  encore  la  folie  de  croire  au 
bonheur  ' " 

"  Oh,  i^ray,  Mr.  Holt,  don't  go  on  reading  with  that  dread- 
ful accent;  it  sets  one's  teeth  on  edge."  Esther,  smarting 
helplessly  under  the  previous  lashes,  was  relieved  by  this 
diversion  of  criticism. 

"There  it  is!""  said  Felix,  throwing  the  book  on  the 
table,  and  getting  up  to  Avalk  about.  "You  are  only 
happy  when  you  can  spy  a  tag  or  a  tassel  loose  to  turn  the 
talk,  and  get  rid  of  any  judgment  that  must  carry  grave 
action  after  it," 

"I  think  I  have  borne  a  great  deal  of  talk  -without 
turning  it." 

"  Not  enough,  Miss  Lyon  —  not  all  that  I  came  to  say. 
I  want  you  to  change.  Of  course  I  am  a  brute  to  say  so. 
I  ought  to  say  you  are  perfect.  Another  man  would,  per- 
haps.    But  I  say  I  want  3'ou  to  change." 

"  How  am  I  to  oblige  you?    By  joining  the  Church?" 

"  No;  but  by  asking  yourself  whether  life  is  not  as  sol- 
emn a  thing  as  your  father  takes  it  to  be  —  in  which  you 
may  be  either  a  blessing  or  a  curse  to  many.  You  know 
you  have  never  done  that.  You  don't  care  to  be  better 
than  a  bird  trimming  its  feathers,  and  pecking  about  after 
what  pleases  it.  You  are  discontented  with  the  world 
because  you  can't  get  just  the  small  things  that  suit  your 
pleasure,  not  because  it's  a  world  where  myriads  of  men 
and  women  are  ground  by  wrong  and  misery,  and  tainted 
with  pollution." 

Esther  felt  her  heart  swelling  with  mingled  indignation 
at  this  liberty,  wounded  pride  at  this  depreciation,  and 
acute  consciousness  that  she  could  not  contradict  what 
Felix  said.  He  was  outrageously  ill-bred;  but  she  felt  that 
she  should  be  lowering  herself  by  telling  him  so,  and  mani- 
festing her  anger;  in  that  way  she  would  be  confirming  liis 
accusation  of  a  littleness  that  shrank  from  severe  truth; 
and,  besides,  through  all  her  mortification  there  pierced  a 


118  FELIX   HOLT,  ' 

sense  that  this  exasperation  of  Felix  against  her  was  more 
complimentary  than  anything  in  his  previous  behavior. 
She  had  self-command  enough  to  speak  with  her  usual  sil- 
very voice. 

"  Pray  go  on,  Mr.  Holt.  Eelieve  yourself  of  these  burn- 
ing truths.  I  am  sure  they  must  be  troublesome  to  carry 
unuttered." 

"  Yes,  they  are, "said  Felix,  pausing,  and  standing  not  far 
oif  her.  "  I  can't  bear  to  see  you  going  the  way  of  the  fool- 
ish women  who  spoil  men's  lives.  Men  can't  help  loving 
them,  and  so  they  make  themselves  slaves  to  the  petty 
desires  of  petty  creatures.  That's  the  way  those  who 
might  do  better  spend  their  lives  for  nought — get  checked 
in  every  great  effort — toil  with  brain  and  limb  for  things 
that  have  no  more  to  do  with  a  manly  life  than  tarts  and 
confectionery.  That's  what  makes  women  a  curse;  all  life 
is  stunted  to  suit  their  littleness.  That's  why  I'll  never 
love,  if  I  can  help  it;  and  if  I  love,  I'll  bear  it,  and  never 
marry." 

The  tumult  of  feeling  in  Esther's  mind  —  mortification, 
anger,  the  sense  of  a  terrible  power  over  her  that  Felix 
seemed  to  have  as  his  angry  words  vibrated  through  her — 
was  getting  almost  too  much  for  her  self-control.  She 
felt  her  lips  quivering;  but  her  pride,  which  feared  noth- 
ing so  much  as  the  betrayal  of  her  emotion,  helped  her  to 
a  desperate  effort.  She  pinched  her  own  hand  hard  to 
overcome  her  tremor,  and  said,  in  a  tone  of  scorn — 

'•  I  ought  to  be  very  much  obliged  to  you  for  giving  me 
your  confidence  so  freely." 

"Ah!  now  you  are  offended  with  me,  and  disgusted 
with  me.  I  expected  it  would  be  so.  A  woman  doesn't 
like  a  man  who  tells  her  the  truth." 

'•^I  think  you  boast  a  little  too  much  of  your  truth- 
telling,  Mr.  Holt,"  said  Esther,"  flashing  out  at  last. 
"  That  virtue  is  apt  to  be  easy  to  people  when  they  only 
wound  others  and  not  themselves.  Telling  the  truth  often 
means  no  more  than  taking  a  liberty." 

"  Yes,  I  suppose  I  should  have  been  taking  a  liberty  it 
I  had  tried  to  drag  you  back  by  the  skirt  when  I  saw  you 
running  into  a  pit." 

"You  should  really  found  a  sect.  Preaching  is  your 
vocation.  It  is  a  pity  you  should  ever  have  an  audience 
of  only  one." 

"I  see;  I  have  made  a  fool  of  myself.  I  thought  you 
had  a  more  generous  mind — that  you  might  be  kindled  to 


THE   RADICAL.  119 


a  better  ambition.     But   I've   set  yonr  vanity  aflame — 
nothing  else.     I'm  going.     Clood-bye." 

"Good-bye/'  said  Esther,  not  looking  at  him.  He  did 
not  open  the  door  immediately.  He  seemed  to  be  adjust- 
ing his  caji  and  2>"Lilling  it  down.  Esther  longed  to  be 
able  to  throw  a  lasso  round  him  and  compel  him  to  stay, 
that  she  might  say  wliat  she  chose  to  him;  her  very  anger ^ 
made  this  departure  irritating,  especially  as  he  had  the 
last  word,  and  that  a  very  bitter  one.  But  soon  the  latch 
was  lifted  and  the  door  closed  beliind  him.  She  ran  up  to 
her  bedroom  and  burst  into  tears.  Poor  maiden!  There 
was  a  strange  contradiction  of  impulses  in  her  mind  in 
those  first  moments.  She  could  not  bear  that  Felix 
should  not  respect  her,  yet  she  could  not  bear  that  he 
should  see  her  bend  before  his  denunciation.  She  revolted 
against  his  assumption  of  superiority,  yet  she  felt  herself 
in  a  new  kind  of  subjection  to  him.  He  was  ill-bred,  he 
was  rude,  he  had  taken  an  iinwarrantable  liberty;  yet  liis 
indignant  words  were  a  tribute  to  her:  he  thought  she 
T.'as  worth  more  pains  than  the  women  of  whom  he  took 
no  notice.  It  was  excessively  impertinent  in  him  to  tell 
her  of  his  resolving  not  to  love — not  to  marry — as  if  she 
cared  about  that;  as  if  he  thought  himself  likely  to 
inspire  an  affection  that  would  incline  any  woman  to 
marry  him  after  such  eccentric  steps  as  he  had  taken. 
Had  he  ever  for  a  moment  imagined  that  she  had  thought 
of  him  in  the  light  of  a  man  who  would  make  love  to 

her? But    did    he    love    her  one    little   bit,   and    was 

that  the  reason  Avhy  he  wanted  her  to  change?  Esther 
felt  less  angry  at  that  form  of  freedom;  though  she  was 
quite  sure  that  slie  did  not  love  him,  and  that  she  could 
never  love  any  one  who  was  so  much  of  a  pedagogue  and 
master,  to  say  nothing  of  his  oddities.  But  he  wanted 
her  to  change.  For  the  first  time  in  her  life  Esther  felt 
herself  seriously  shaken  in  her  self  -  contentment. 
She  knew  there  was  a  mind  to  which  she  appeared 
trivial,  narrow,  selfish.  Every  word  Felix  had  said 
to  her  seemed  to  have  burned  itself  into  her  memory. 
She  felt  as  if  she  should  forevcrmore  be  haunted  by  self- 
criticism,  and  never  do  anything  to  satisfy  tliose  fancies 
on  which  she  had  simply  piqued  herself  before  without 
being  dogged  by  inward  questions.  Her  father's  desire 
for  her  conversion  liad  never  moved  her;  she  saw  that  he 
adored  her  all  the  Avhile,  and  he  never  checked  her  unre- 
geuerate  acts  as  if  they  degraded  her  on  earth,  but  only 


120  FELIX  HOLT, 

mourned  over  them  as  unfitting  her  for  heaven.  Unfit- 
ness for  heaven -(spoken  of  as  "Jerusalem  "  and  "glory"), 
the  prayers  of  a  good  little  father,  whose  thoughts  and 
motives  seemed  to  her  like  the  "  Life  of  Dr.  Doddridge," 
which  she  was  content  to  leave  unread,  did  not  attack  her 
self-respect  and  self-satisfaction.  But  now  she  had  been 
stung — stung  even  into  a  new  consciousness  concerning  her 
father.  Was  it  true  that  his  life  was  so  much  worthier 
than  her  own?  She  could  not  change  for  anything  Felix 
said,  but  she  told  herself  he  was  mistaken  if  he  supposed 
her  incapable  of  generous  thoughts. 

She  heard  her  father  coming  into  the  house.  She  dried 
her  tears,  tried  to  recover  herself  hurriedly,  and  went 
down  to  him. 

"You  want  your  tea,  father;  how  your  forehead  burns!" 
she  said  gently,  kissing  his  brow,  and  then  putting  her 
cool  hand  on  it. 

Mr.  Lyon  felt  a  little  surprise;  such  spontaneous  tender- 
ness was  not  quite  common  with  her;  it  reminded  him 
of  her  mother. 

"My  sweet  child,"  he  said  gratefully,  thinking  with 
wonder  of  the  treasures  still  left  in  our  fallen  nature. 


CHAPTER  XL 

Truth  is  the  precious  harvest  of  the  earth. 
But  once,  when  harvest  waved  upon  a  land, 
The  noisome  cankerworm  and  caterpillar, 
Locusts,  and  all  the  swarming-  foul-born  broods- 
Fastened  upon  it  with  swift,  greedy  jaws, 
And  turned  the  harvest  into  pestilence, 
Until  men  said,  What  profits  it  to  sow  ? 

Felix  was  going  to  Sproxton  that  Sunday  afternoon. 
He  alwa3'S  enjoyed  his  walk  to  that  outlying  hamlet;  it 
took  him  (by  a  short  cut)  through  a  corner  of  Sir  Maxi- 
mus  Debarry's  park;  then  across  a  piece  of  common, 
broken  here  and  there  into  red  ridges  below  dark  masses 
of  furze;  and  for  the  rest  of  the  way  alongside  of  the 
canal,  where  the  Sunday  peacefulness  that  seemed  to  rest 
on  the  bordering  meadows  and  pastures  was  hardly  broken 
if  a  horse  pulled  into  sight  along  the  towing-path,  and  a 
boat,  with  a  little  curl  of  blue  smoke  issuing  from  its 
tin  chimney,  came  slowly  gliding  behind.  Felix  retained 
something  of   his  boyish  impression  that  the  davs  in  a 


THE   RADICAL.  121 

canal-boat  were  all  like  Sundays;  bnt  the  horse,  if  it  had 
been  put  to  him,  would  probably  have  preferred  a  more 
Judaic  or  Scotch  rigor  with  regard  to  canal-boats,  or  at 
least  that  the  Sunday  towing  should  be  done  by  asses,  as  a 
lower  order. 

This  canal  was  only  a  branch  of  the  grand  trunk,  and 
ended  among  the  coal-pits,  where  Felix,  crossing  a  network 
of  black  tram-roads,  soon  came  to  his  destination — that 
public  institute  of  Sproxton,  known  to  its  frequenters 
chiefly  as  Cliubb's,  but  less  familiarly  as  the  Sugar  Loaf,  or 
the  New  Pits;  this  last  being  the  name  for  the  more  modern 
and  rivel}''  nucleus  of  the  Sproxton  hamlet.  The  other 
nucleus,  known  as  the  Old  Pits,  also  sujiported  its  "  pub- 
lic," but  it  had  something  of  the  forlorn  air  of  an  aban- 
doned capital;  and  the  company  at  the  Blue  Cow  was  of 
an  inferior  kind — equal,  of  course,  in  the  fundamental 
attributes  of  humanity,  such  as  desire  for  beer,  but  not  equal 
in  ability  to  pay  for  it. 

When  Felix  arrived,  the  great  Chubb  was  standing  at 
the  door.  Mr.  Chubb  was  a  remarkable  jjublican;  none  of 
your  stock  Bonifaces,  red,  bloated,  jolly,  and  joking.  He 
was  thin  and  sallow,  and  was  never,  as  his  constant  guests 
observed,  seen  to  be  the  worse  (or  the  better)  for  liquor; 
indeed,  as  among  soldiers  an  eminent  general  was  held  to 
have  a  charmed  life,  Chubb  was  held  by  the  members  of 
the  Benefit  Club  to  have  a  charmed  sobriety,  a  vigilance 
over  his  own  interest  that  resisted  all  narcotics.  His  very 
dreams,  as  stated  by  himself,  had  a  method  in  them 
beyond  the  waking  thoughts  of  other  men.  Pharaoh's 
dream,  he  observed,  was  nothing  to  them;  and,  as  lying 
so  much  out  of  ordinary  experience,  they  Avere  held  par- 
ticularly suitable  for  narration  on  Sunday  evenings,  when 
the  listening  colliers,  well  washed  and  in  their  best  coats, 
shook  their  heads  with  a  sense  of  that  peculiar  edification 
which  belongs  to  the  inexplicable.  Mr.  Chubb's  reasons 
for  becoming  landlord  of  the  Sugar  Loaf  Avere  founded  on 
the  severest  calculation.  Having  an  active  mind,  and 
being  averse  to  bodily  labor,  he  had  thoroughly  considered 
what  calling  would  yield  him  the  best  livelihood  with  the 
least  possible  exertion,  and  in  that  sort  of  line  he  had  seen 
that  a  '^ public"  amongst  miners  who  earned  high  wages 
was  a  fine  opening.  He  had  ]irospered  according  to  the 
merits  of  such  judicious  calculation,  was  already  a  forty- 
shilling  freeholder,  and  was  conscious. of  a  vote  for  the 
county.     He  was  not  one  of  those  mean-spirited  men  who 


122  FELIX   HOLT, 

found  the  franchise  embarrassing,  and  would  rather  have 
been  without  it:  he  regarded  his  vote  as  part  of  his  invest- 
ment, and  meant  to  make  the  best  of  it.  He  called  him- 
self a  straight-forward  man,  and  at  suitable  moments 
expressed  his  views  freely;  in  fact,  he  was  known  to  have 
one  fundamental  division  for  all  opinion — "  my  idee  "  and 
"humbug." 

When  Felix  approached,  Mr.  Chubb  was  standing,  as 
usual,  with  his  hands  nervously  busy  in  his  pockets,  his 
eyes  glancing  round  with  a  detective  expression  at  the 
black  landscape,  and  his  lipless  mouth  compressed  yet  in 
constant  movement.  On  a  superficial  view  it  might  be 
supposed  that  so  eager-seeming  a  personality  was  unsuited 
to  the  publican's  business;  but  in  fact  it  was  a  great  provo- 
cative to  drinking.  Like  the  shrill  biting  talk  of  a  vixen- 
ish wife,  it  would  have  compelled  you  to  "■  take  a  little 
something  "  by  way  of  dulling  your  sensibility. 

Hitherto,  notwithstanding  Felix  drank  so  little  ale,  the 
publican  had  treated  him  with  high  civility.  The  coming 
election  was  a  great  opportunity  for  applying  his  political 
"idee,''  which  was,  that  society  existed  for  the  sake  of 
the  individual,  and  that  the  name  of  that  individual 
was  Chubb.  Now,  from  a  conjunction  of  absurd  circum- 
stances inconsistent  with  that  idea,  it  happened  that 
Sproxton  hitherto  had  been  somewhat  neglected  in  the 
canvass.  The  head  member  of  the  company  that  worked 
the  mines  was  Mr.  Peter  Garstin,  and  the  same  company 
received  the  rent  for  the  Sugar  Loaf.  Hence,  as  the 
person  who  had  the  most  jjower  of  annoying  Mr.  Chubb, 
and  being  of  detriment  to  him,  Mr.  Garstin  was  naturally 
the  candidate  for  whom  he  had  reserved  his  vote.  But 
where  there  is  this  intention  of  ultimately  gratifying  a 
gentleman  by  voting  for  him  in  an  open  Biitish  manner  on 
the  day  of  the  poll,  a  man,  whether  Publican  or  Pharisee 
(Mr.  Chubb  used  this  generic  classification  of  mankind  as 
one  that  was  sanctioned  by  Scripture),  is  all  the  freer  in 
his  relations  with  those  deluded  persons  who  take  him  for 
what  he  is  not,  and  imagine  him  to  be  a  waverer.  But  for 
some  time  opportunity  had  seemed  barren.  There  were 
but  three  dubious  votes  besides  Mr.  Chubb's  in  the  small 
district  of  which  the  Sugar  Loaf  could  be  regarded  as  the 
centre  of  intelligence  and  inspiration:  the  colliers,  of 
course,  had  no  votes,  and  did  not  need  political  conver- 
sion; consequently,  the  interests  of  Sproxton  had  only 
been  tacitly  cherished  in  the  breasts  of  candidates.     But 


THE   RADICAL.  138 

ever  since  it  had  been  known  that  a  Eadical  candidate  was 
in  the  field,  that  in  consequence  of  this  Mr.  Debarry  had 
coalesced  v/ith  Mr.  Garstin,  and  that  Sir  James  Clement, 
the  poor  baronet,  had  retired,  Mr.  Chubb  had  been  occu- 
j)ied  with  the  most  ingenious  mental  combinations  in  order 
to  ascertain  what  possibilities  of  profit  to  the  Sugar  Loaf 
might  lie  in  this  altered  state  of  the  canvass. 

He  had  a  cousin  in  another  county,  also  a  publican,  but 
in  a  larger  way,  and  resident  in  a  borough,  and  from  him 
Mr.  Chubb  had  gathered  more  detailed  political  informa- 
tion than  he  could  find  in  the  Loamshire  newspapers.  He 
was  now  enlightened  enough  to  know  that  there  was  a  way 
of  using  voteless  miners  and  navvies  at  nominations  and 
elections.  He  approved  of  that;  it  entered  into  his  polit- 
ical *''^idee'';  and  indeed  he  would  have  been  for  extending 
the  franchise  to  this  class — at  least  in  Sproxton.  •  If  any 
one  had  observed  that  you  must  draw  a  line  somewhere, 
Mr.  Chubb  would  have  concurred  at  once,  and  would  have 
given  jiermission  to  draw  it  at  a  radius  of  two  miles  from 
his  OAvn  tap. 

From  the  first  Sunday  evening  when  Felix  had  appeared 
at  the  Sugar  Loaf,  Mr.  Chubb  had  made  up  his  mind  that 
this  cute  man  who  kept  himself  sober  was  an  electioneer- 
ing agent.  That  he  was  hired  for  some  purpose  or  other 
there  was  not  a  doubt;  a  man  didn't  come  and  drink 
nothing  without  a  good  reason.  In  proportion  as  Felix's 
purpose  was  not  obvious  to  Chubb's  mind,  it  must  be  deep; 
and  this  growing  conviction  had  even  led  the  publican  on 
the  last  Sunday  evening  privately  to  urge  his  mysterious 
visitor  to  let  a  little  ale  be  chalked  up  for  him — it  was  of 
no  consequence.  Felix  knew  his  man,  and  had  taken  care 
not  to  betray  too  soon  that  his  real  object  was  to  win  the 
ear  of  the  best  fellows  about  him  as  to  induce  them  to 
meet  him  on  a  Saturday  evening  in  the  room  where  Mr. 
Lyon,  or  one  of  his  deacons,  habitually  held  his  Wednes- 
day preachings.  Only  Avomen  and  children,  three  old 
men,  a  journeyman  tailor,  and  a  consumptive  youtli, 
attended  tliose  preachings;  not  a  collier  had  been  won 
from  the  strong  ale  of  the  Sugar  Loaf,  not  even  a  navvy 
from  the  muddier  drink  of  the  Blue  Cow.  Felix  was  san- 
guine; he  saw  some  pleasant  faces  among  the  miners  when 
they  were  washed  on  Sundays;  they  might  be  taught  to 
spend  their  wages  better.  At  all  events,  he  was  going  to 
try:  he  had  great  confidence  in  his  powers  of  appeal,  and 
it  was  quite  true  that  he  never  spoke  without  arresting 


124  FELIX  HOLT, 

attention.  There  was  nothing  better  than  a  dame  school 
in  the  hamlet;  he  thought  that  if  he  could  move  the 
fathea-s,  whose  blackened  week-day  persons  and  flannel 
caps,  ornamented  with  tallow  candles  by  way  of  plume, 
were  a  badge  of  hard  labor,  for  which  he  had  a  more  sym- 
pathetic fibre  than  for  auy  ribbon  in  the  button-hole — if 
he  could  move  these  men  to  save  something  from  their 
drink  and  pay  a  school-master  for  their  boys,_  a  greater 
service  would  be  done  them  than  if  Mr.  Garstin  and  his 
company  were  persuaded  to  establish  a  school. 

''I'll  lay  hold  of  them  by  their  fatherhood,"  said  Felix; 
"I'll  take  one  of  their  little  fellows  and  set  him  in  the 
midst.  Till  they  can  show  there's  something  they  love 
better  than  swilling  tliemselves  with  ale,  extension  of  the 
suffrage  can  never  mean  anything  for  them  but  extension 
of  boozing.  One  must  begin  somewhere:  I'll  begin  at 
what  is  under  my  nose.  I'll  begin  at  Sproxton.  That's 
what  a  man  would  do  if  he  had  a  red-hot  superstition. 
Can't  one  work  for  sober  truth  as  hard  as  for  megrims?'' 

Felix  Holt  had  his  illusions,  like  other  young  men, 
though  they  were  not  of  a  fashionable  sort;  referring 
neither  to  the  impression  his  costume  and  horsemanship 
miglit  make  on  beholders,  nor  to  the  ease  with  which  he 
would  pay  the  Jews  when  he  gave  a  loose  to  his  talents  and 
applied  himself  to  work.  He  iiad  fixed  his  choice  on  a 
certain  Mike  Brindle  (not  that  Brindle  was  his  real  name — 
each  collier  had  his  sobriquet)  as  tlie  man  whom  he  would 
induce  to  walk  part  of  the  way  home  with  him  this  very 
evening,  and  get  to  invite  sonie  of  his  comrades  for  the 
next  Saturday.  Brindle  was  one  of  the  head  miners:  he 
had  a  bright  good-natured  face,  and  had  given  especial 
attention  to  certain  performances  with  a  magnet  which 
Felix  carried  in  his  pocket. 

Mr.  Cliubb,  who  had  also  his  illusions,  smiled  graciously 
as  the  enigmatic  customer  came  up  to  the  door-step. 

"Well,  sir,  Sunday  seems  to  be  your  day:  I  begin  to 
look  for  you  on  a  Sunday  now." 

"  Yes,'rm  a  working  man;  Sunday  is  my  lioliday,"  said 
Felix,  pausing  at  the  door  since  the  host  seemed  to  expect 
this. 

''Ah,  sir,  there's  many  ways  of  working.  I  look  at  it 
you're. one  of  those  as  work  with  your  brains.  That's  what 
I  do  myself." 

"One  may  do  a  good  deal  of  that  and  work  with  one's 
hands  too." 


THE    KADICAL.  126 

"Ah,  sir,"  said  Mr.  Chubb,  with  a  certain  bitterness  in 
his  smile,  ''I've  that  sort  of  head  that  I've  often  wished  I 
was  stupider.  I  use  things  up,  sir;  I  see  into  things  a 
deal  too  quick.  I  eat  my  dinner,  as  you  may  say,  at 
breakfast-time.  That's  why  I  hardly  ever  smoke  a  pipe. 
Xo  sooner  do  I  stick  a  pipe  in  my  mouth  than  I  puff  and. 
puff  till  it's  gone  before  other  folks'  are  well  lit;  and  then, 
where  am  I?  I  might  as  well  have  let  it  alone.  In  this 
world  it's  better  not  to  be  too  quick.  But  you  know  what 
it  is,  sir.'"     • 

"Not  I,"'said  Felix,  rubbing  the  back  of  his  head,  with 
a  grimace.  "  I  generally  feel  myself  rather  a  blockhead. 
The  world's  a  largish  place,  and  I  haven't  turned  every- 
thing inside  out  yet." 

"Ah,  that's  your  deepness.  I  think  we  understand  one 
another.  And  about  this  here  election,  I  lay  two  to  one 
we  should  agree  if  we  was  to  come  to  talk  about  it." 

"Ah!"  said  Felix,  with  an  air  of  caution. 

"You're  none  of  a  Tory,  eh,  sir?  You  won't  go  to  vote 
for  Debarry?  That  was  what  I  said  at  the  very  first  go-off. 
Says  I,  he's  no  Tory.     I  think  I  was  right,  sir — eh?" 

"  Certainly;  I'm  no  Tory." 

"No,  no,  you  don't  catcli  me  wrong  in  a  hurry.  Well, 
between  you  and  me,  I  care  no  more  for  the  Debarrys  than 
I  care  for  Johnny  Groats.  I  live  on  none  o'  their  land, 
and  not  a  pot's-worth  did  they  ever  send  to  the  Sugar 
Loaf.  I'm  not  frightened  at  'the  Debarrys:  there's  no 
man  more  independent  than  me.  I'll  plump  or  I'll  split 
for  them  as  treat  me  the  handsomest  and  are  the  most  of 
what  I  call  gentlemen;  that's  my  idee.  And  in  the  way 
of  hatching  for  any  man,  them  are  fools  that  don't  emj)loy 


me." 


We  mortals  sometimes  cut  a  pitiable  figure  in  our 
attempts  at  display.  We  may  be  sure  of  our  own  merits 
yet  fatally  ignorant  of  the  point  of  view  from  which  we 
are  regarded  by  our  neighbor.  Our  fine  patterns  in  tattoo- 
ing may  be  far  from  throwing  him  into  a  swoon  of  admira- 
tion, tliough  we  turn  ourselves  all  round  to  show  them. 
Thus  it  was  with  Mr.  Chubb. 

"Yes,"  said  Felix,  dryly;  "I  should  think  there  are 
some  sorts  of  work  for  which  you  are  Just  fitted." 

"Ah,  you  see  that?  Well,"^we  understand  one  another. 
You're  no  Tory;  no  more  am  I.  And  if  I'd  got  four  hands  to 
show  at  a  nomination,  the  Debarrys  sliouldn't  have  one.  of 
'em.    My  idee  is,, there's  a  deal  too  much  of  their  scutchins 


126  FELIX    HOLT, 

and  their  moniments  in  Treby  Church.  What's  their 
scutchins  mean  ?  They're  a  sign  with  little  liquor  behind 
'em;  that's  how  I  take  it.  There's  nobody  can  give  ac- 
count of  'em  as  I  ever  heard." 

Mr.  Chubb  was  hindered  from  further  explaining  his 
views  as  to  the  historical  element  in  society  by  the  arrival 
of  new  guests,  who  approached  in  two  groups.  The  foremost 
group  consisted  of  well-known  colliers,  in  their  good  Sunday 
beavers  and  colored  handkerchiefs  serving  as  cravats,  with 
the  long  ends  floating.  The  second  group  was  a  more 
unusual  one,  and  caused  Mr.  Chubb  to  compress  his 
mouth  and  agitate  the  muscles  about  it  in  rather  an  excited 
manner. 

First  came  a  smartly-dressed  personage  on  horseback, 
with  a  conspicuous  expansive  shirt-front  and  figured  satin 
stock.  He  was  a  stout  man,  and  gave  a  strong  sense  of 
broadcloth.  A  wild  idea  shot  through  Mr.  Chubb's  brain; 
could  this  grand  visitor  be  Harold  Transome?  Excuse 
him:  he  had  been  given  to  understand  by  his  cousin  from 
the  distant  borough  that  a  Eadical  candidate  in  the  con- 
descension of  canvassing  had  even  gone  the  length  ot 
eating  bread -and-treacle  with  the  children  of  an  honest 
freeman,  and  declaring  his  preference  for  that  simple  fare. 
Mr.  Chubb's  notion  of  a  Eadical  was  that  he  was  a  new 
and  agreeable  kind  of  lick-spittle  who  fawned  on  the  pooi 
instead  of  on  the  rich,  and  so  was  likely  to  send  customer^ 
to  a  "public";  so  that  he  argued  well  enough  from  the 
premises  at  his  command. 

The  mounted  man  of  broadcloth  had  followers:  several 
shabby-looking  men,  and  Sproxton  boys  of  all  sizes,  whose 
curiosity  had  been  stimulated  by  unexpected  largesse.  A 
stranger  on  horseback  scattering  halfpence  on  a  Sunday 
was  so  unprecedented  that  there  was  no  knowing  what  he 
might  do  next;  and  the  smallest  hindmost  fellows  in  seal- 
skin caps  were  not  without  hope  that  an  entirely  new  ordei 
of  things  had  set  in. 

Every  one  waited  outside  for  the  stranger  to  dismount, 
and  Mr.  Chubb  advanced  to  take  the  bridle. 

"Well,  Mr.  Chubb,"  were  the  first  words  when  the 
great  man  was  safely  out  of  the  saddle,  "I've  often  heard 
of  your  fine  tap,  and  I'm  come  to  taste  it," 

"Walk  in,  sir  —  pray  walk  in,"  said  Mr.  Chubb,  giving 
the  horse  to  the  stable-boy.  "  I  shall  be  proud  to  draw  for 
you.  If  anybody's  been""  praising  me,  I  think  my  ale  will 
back  him."  — 


THE   RADICAL.  127 

All  entered  in  the  rear  of  the  stranger  except  the  boys, 
who  peeped  in  at  the  window. 

"  Won't  you  please  to  walk  into  the  parlor,  sir,''*  said  Mr. 
Chubb,  obsequiously. 

"  No,  no,  ril  sit  down  here.  This  is  what  I  like  to  see," 
paid  the  stranger,  looking  round  at  the  colliers,  who  eyed 
him  rather  shyly  —  "a  bright  hearth  where  working  men 
can  enjoy  themselves.  However,  Pll  step  into  the  other 
room  for  three  minutes,  just  to  speak  half  a  dozen  words 
witli  you." 

Mr.  Chubb  threw  open  the  parlor  door,  and  then  stepping 
back,  took  the  opportunity  of  saying,  in  a  low  tone,  to 
Felix,  "Do  vou  know  this  gentleman?" 

"Not  1;  no." 

Mr.  Chubb's  opinion  of  Felix  Holt  sank  from  that 
moment.  The  parlor  door  Avas  closed,  but  no  one  sat 
down  or  ordered  beer. 

"  I  say,  master,"  said  Mike  Brindle,  going  up  to  Felix, 
"don't  you  think  that's  one  o'  the  'lection  men?" 

"Very  likely." 

"  I  beared  a  chap  say  they're  up  and  doAvn  everywhere," 
said  Brindle;  "and  now's  the  time,  they  say,  when  a  man 
can  get  beer  for  nothing." 

"Ay,  that's  sin'  the  Keform,"  said  a  big,  red-whisk- 
ered man,  called  Dredge.  "  That's  brought  the  'lections 
and  the  drink  into  these  parts;  for  afore  that,  it  was  all 
kep  up  the  Lord  knows  wheer." 

"Well,  but  the  Eeform's  niver  come  anigh  Sprox'on," 
said  a  gray-haired  but  stalwart  man  called  Old  Sleek.  "I 
don't  believe  nothing  about'n,  I  don't." 

"Don't  you?"  said  Brindle,  wifh  some  contempt. 
"  Well,  I  do.  There's  folks  won't  believe  beyond  the  end 
o'  their  own  pickaxes.  .  You  can't  drive  nothing  into  'em, 
not  if  you  split  their  skulls.  I  know  for  certain  sure,  from 
a  chap  in  the  cartin'  Avay,  as  he's  got  money  and  drink  too, 
only  for  hollering.  Eh,  master,  what  do  you  say?"  Brin- 
dle ended,  turning  with  some  deference  to  Felix. 

"Should  you  like  to  know  all  about  the  Eeform?"  said 
Felix,  using  his  opportunity.  "If  you  would,  I  can  tell 
you." 

"Ay,  ay — tell's;  you  know  I'll  be  bound,"  said  several 
voices  at  once. 

"  Ah,  but  it  will  take  some  little  time.  And  we  must  be 
quiet.  The  cleverest  of  you — those  who  are  looked  up  to  in 
the  Club — must  come  and  meet  me  at  Peggy  Button's  cot- 


128  FELIX   HOLT, 

tage  next  Saturday,  at  seven  o'clock,  after  dark.  And  Brin- 
dle,  you  must  bring  that  little  yellow-haired  lad  of  yours. 
And  anybody  that's  got  a  little  boy  —  a  very  little  fellow, 
Avho  won't  understand  what  is  said — may  bring  him.  But 
you  must  keep  it  close,  you  know.  We  don't  want  fools 
there.  But  everybody  who  hears  me  may  come.  I  shall  be 
at  Peggy  Button's." 

"Why,  that's  where  the  Wednesday  preachin'  is,"  said 
Dredge.  "  I've  been  aforced  to  give  my  wife  a  black  eye 
to  hinder  her  from  going  to  the  preachin'.  Lors-a-massy, 
she  tliinks  she  knows  better  nor  me,  and  I  can't  make  head 
nor  tail  of  her  talk." 

"Why  can't  you  let  the  woman  alone?"  said  Brindle, 
with  some  disgust.  "  I'd  be  ashamed  to  beat  a  poor  crawl- 
ing thing  'cause  she  likes  preaching." 

"No  more  I  did  beat  her  afore,  not  if  she  scrat'  me,'' 
said  Dredge,  in  vindication;  "but  if  she  jabbers  at  me,  1 
can't  abide  it.  Howsomever,  I'll  bring  my  Jack  to  Peg- 
gy's o'  Saturday.  His  mother  shall  wash  him.  He  is  but 
four  year  old,  and  he'll  swear  and  square  at  me  a  good  un, 
if  I  set  him  on." 

"  There  you  go  blatherin',"  said  Brindle,  intending  a 

mild  rebuke. 

This  dialogue,  which  was  in  danger  of  becoming  too 
personal,  was  interrupted  by  the  reopening  of  the  parlor 
door,  and  the  reappearance  of  the  impressive  stranger  with 
Mr.  Chubb,  Avhose  countenance  seemed  unusually  radiant. 

"  Sit  you  down  here,  Mr.  Johnson,"  said  Chubb,  moving 
an  arm-chair.  "  This  gentleman  is  kind  enough  to  treat 
the  company,"  he  added,  looking  round,  "and  what's 
more,  he'll  take  a  cup  with  'em;  and  I  think  there's  no 
man  but  what'll  say  that's  a  honor." 

The  company  had  nothing  equivalent  to  a  "hear,  hear," 
at  command,  but  tliey  perhaps  felt  the  more,  as  they 
seated  themselves  with  an  expectation  un  vented  by  utter- 
ance. There  was  a  general  satisfactory  sense  that  tho 
hitherto  shadowy  Keform  had  at  length  come  to  Sproxton 
in  a  good  round  shape,  with  broadcloth  and  pockets. 
Felix  did  not  intend  to  accept  the  treating,  but  he  chose 
to  stav  and  hear,  taking  his  pint  as  usual. 

"Capital  ale,  capital  ale,"  said  Mr.  Johnson,  as  he  set 
down  his  glass,  speaking  in  a  quick,  smooth _  treble. 
"  Now,"  he  went  on,  witli  a  certain  pathos  in  his  voice, 
looking  at  Mr.  Chubb,  who  sat  opposite,  "there's  some 
satisfaction  to  me  in  finding  an  establishment  like  this  at 


THE    RADICAL.  129 

the  Pits.  For  what  would  higher  wages  do  for  the  work- 
ing man  if  he  couldn't  get  a  good  article  for  his  money? 
Why,  gentlemen" — here  he  looked  round — "I've  been 
into  ale-houses  where  I've  seen  a  fine  fellow  of  a  miner  or 
a  stone-cutter  come  in  and  have  to  lay  down  money  for 
beer  that  I  should  be  sorry  to  give  to  my  pigs!"  Here 
Mr.  Johnson  leaned  forward  with  squared  elbows,  hands 
placed  on  his  knees,  and  a  defiant  shake  of  the  head. 

"Aw,  like  at  the  Blue  Cow,"  fell  in  the  irrepressible 
Dredge,  in  a  deep  bass;  but  he  was  rebuked  by  a  severe 
nudge  from  Brindle. 

"  Yes,  yes,  you  know  what  it  is,  my  friend,"  said  Mr. 
Johnson,  looking  at  Dredge,  and  restoring  his  self-satis- 
faction. '"But  it  won't  last  much  longer,  that's  one  good 
thing.  Bad  liquor  will  be  swept  away  with  other  bad 
articles.  Trade  will  prosper — and  what's  trade  now  with- 
out steam?  and  what  is  steam  without  coal?  And  mark 
you  this,  gentlemen — there's  no  man  and  no  government 
can  make  coal." 

A  brief  loud  "  Haw,  haw,"  showed  that  this  fact  was 
appreciated. 

"Nor  freeston'  nayther,"  said  a  wide- mouthed  wiry  man 
called  Gills,  who  wished  for  an  exhaustive  treatment  of 
the  subject,  being  a  stone-cutter. 

"  Nor  freestone,  as  you  say;  else,  I  think,  if  coal  could 
be  made  aboveground,  honest  fellows  who  are  the  pith  of 
our  population  would  not  have  to  bend  their  backs  and 
sweat  in  a  pit  six  days  out  of  the  seven.  No,  no:  I  say, 
as  this  country  ^^rospei's  it  has  more  and  more  need  of  you, 
sirs.  It  can  do  without  a  pack  of  lazy  lords  and  ladies, 
but  it  can  never  do  without  brave  colliers.  And  the 
country  will  prosper.  I  pledge  you  my  word,  sirs,  this 
country  will  rise  to  the  tip-top  of  everything,  and  there 
isn't  a  man  in  it  but  what  shall  have  his  joint  in  the  pot, 
and  his  spare  money  jingling  in  his  pocket,  if  we  only 
exert  ourselves  to  send  the  right  men  to  Parliament — men 
who  will  speak  up  for  the  collier,  and  the  stone-cutter, 
and  the  navvy  "  (Mr.  Johnson  waved  his  hand  liberally), 
"and  will  stand  no  nonsense.  This  is  a  crisis,  and  we 
must  exert  ourselves.  AVe've  got  Reform,  gentlemen,  but 
now  the  thing  is  to  make  Reform  work.  It's  a  crisis — I 
pledge  you  my  word  it's  a  crisis." 

Mr.  Johnson  threw  himself  back  as  if  from  the  concus- 
sion of  that  great  noun.  He  did  not  suppose  that  one  of 
his  audience  knew  what  a  crisis  meant;  but  he  had  large 


130  FELIX   HOLT, 

experience  in  the  effect  of  nncomprehended  words;  and  in 
this  ease  the  colliers  were  thrown  into  a  state  of  conviction 
concerning  they  did  not  know  what,  which  was  a  fine 
preparation  for  "hitting  out,"  or  any  other  act  carrying  a 
due  sequence  to  such  a  conviction. 

Felix  felt  himself  in  danger  of  getting  into  a  rage. 
There  is  hardly  any  mental  misery  worse  than  that  of 
having  our  own  serious  phrases,  our  own  rooted  beliefs, 
caricatured  by  a  charlatan  or  a  hireling.  He  began  to  feel 
the  sharp  lower  edge  of  his  tin  pint-measure,  and  to  think 
it  a  tempting  missile. 

Mr.  Johnson  certainly  had  some  qualifications  as  an 
orator.  After  this  impressive  pause  he  leaned  forward 
again,  and  said,  in  a  lowered  tone,  looking  round — 

"1  think  you  all  know  the  good  news." 

There  was  a  movement  of  shoe-soles  on  the  quarried 
floor,  and  a  scrape  of  some  chair  legs,  but  no  other  answer, 

'•'The  good  news  I  mean  is,  that  a  first-rate  man,  Mr. 
Transome,  of  Transome  Court,  has  offered  himself  to  rep- 
resent you  in  Parliament,  sirs.  I  say  you  in  particular, 
for  what  he  has  at  heart  is  the  welfare  of  the  working 
man — of  the  brave  felloAvs  that  wield  the  pickaxe,  and  the 
saw,  and  the  hammer.  He's  rich — has  more  money  than 
Garstin — but  he  doesn't  want  to  keep  it  to  himself.  What 
he  wants  is,  to  make  a  good  use  of  it.  gentlemen.  He's 
come  back  from  foreign  parts  with  his  pockets  full  of  gold. 
He  could  buy  up  the  Debarrys,  if  they  were  worth  buying, 
but  he's  got  something  better  to  do  with  his  money.  He 
means  to  use  it  for  the  good  of  the  working  men  in  these 
parts.  I  know  there  are  some  men  who  put  up  for  Parlia- 
ment and  talk  a  little  too  big.  They  may  say  they  want  to 
befriend  the  colliers,  for  example.  But  I  should  like  to 
put  a  question  to  them.  I  should  like  to  ask  them,  'What 
colliers?'  There  are  colliers  up  at  Newcastle,  and  there 
are  colliers  down  in  Wales.  Will  it  do  any  good  to  honest 
Tom,  who  is  hungry  in  Sproxton,  to  hear  that  Jack  at 
Newcastle  has  his  belly  full  of  beef  and  pudding?" 

"It  ought  to  do  him  good,"  Pelix  burst  in,  with  his 
loud,  abrupt  voice,  in  odd  contrast  with  glib  Mr,  John- 
son's. "If  he  knows  it's  a  bad  thing  to  be  hungry  and 
not  have  enough  to  eat,  he  ought  to  be  glad  that  another 
fellow,  who  is  not  idle,  is  not  suffering  in  the  same  way." 

Every  one  was  startled.  The  audience  was  much 
impressed  with  the  grandeur,  the  knowledge,  and  the 
power  of  Mr.  Johnson.     His  brilliant  promises  confirmed 


THE    RADICAL.  131 

the  impression  that  Reform  had  at  length  reached  the  New 
Pits;  and  Reform,  if  it  were  good  for  anything,  must  at 
last  reiolve  itself  into  spare  mone}' — meaning  "  sport "  and 
drink  and  keeping  away  from  work  for  several  days  in  the 
week.  These  "  brave "  men  of  Sproxton  liked  Felix  as 
one  of  themselves,  only  much  more  knowing — as  a  work- 
ing man  who  had  seen  many  distant  parts,  but  who  must 
be  very  poor,  since  he  never  drank  more  than  a  pint  or  so. 
They  were  quite  inclined  to  hear  what  he  had  got  to  say 
on  another  occasion,  but  they  were  rather  irritated  by  liis 
interruption  at  the  present  moment.  Mr.  Johnson  was 
annoyed,  but  he  spoke  with  the  same  glib  quietness  as 
before,  though  with  an  expression  of  contempt. 

"I  call  it  a  poor-spirited  thing  to  take  up  a  man's 
straightforward  words  and  twist  them.  What  I  meant  to 
say  was  plain  enough — that  no  man  can  be  saved  from 
starving  by  looking  on  while  others  eat.  I  think  that's 
common-sense,  eh,  sirs?" 

There  was  again  an  approving  ''Haw,  haw.''  To  hear 
anything  said,  and  understand  it,  was  a  stimulus  that  had 
the  effect  of  wit.  Mr.  Chubb  cast  a  suspicious  and  viper- 
ous glance  at  Felix,  who  felt  that  he  had  been  a  simpleton 
for  his  pains. 

"Well,  then,"  continued  Mr.  Johnson,  "1  suppose  I 
may  go  on.  But  if  there  is  any  one  here  better  able  to 
inform  the  company  than  I  am,  I  give  way — I  give  way." 

"  Sir,"  said  Mr.  Chubb,  magisterially,  "no  man  shall 
take  the  words  out  of  your  mouth  in  this  house.  And," 
he  added,  looking  pointedly  at  Felix,  "company  that's  got 
no  more  orders  to  give,  and  wants  to  turn  up  rusty  to  them 
that  has,  had  better  be  making  room  than  filling  it.  Love 
an'  'armony's  the  word  on  our  Club's  flag,  an'  love  an' 
'armony's  the  meaning  of  *  The  Sugar  Loaf,  William 
Chubb."^  Folks  of  a  different  mind  had  better  seek 
another  house  of  call." 

"Very  good,"  said  Felix,  laying  down  his  money  and 
taking  his  cap.  "I'm  going."  He  saw  clearly  enougli 
that  if  he  said  more,  there  would  be  a  disturbance  which 
could  have  no  desirable  end. 

When  the  door  had  closed  behind  him,  Mr.  Johnson 
said,  "What  is  that  person's  name?" 

"Does  anybody  know  it?"  said  Mr.  Chubb. 

A  few  noes  were  heard. 

"  I've  heard  him  speak  like  a  downright  Reformer,  else 


132  FELIX    HOLT, 

I  should  have  looked  a  little  sharper  after  him.     But  you 
may  see  he's  nothing  particular. 

"  It  looks  rather  bad  that  no  one  knows  his  name/'  said 
Mr.  Johnson.  "  He's  most  likely  a  Tory  in  disguise — a 
Tory  spy.  You  must  be  careful,  sirs,  of  men  who  come  to 
you  and  say  they're  Eadicals,  and  yet  do  nothing  for  you. 
They'll  stuff  you  with  words — no  lack  of  words — ^but  words 
are  wind.  Now,  a  man  like  Transome  comes  forward  and 
says  to  the  workingmen  of  this  country:  'Here  I  am, 
ready  to  serve  you  and  speak  for  you  in  Parliament,  and  to 
get  the  laws  made  all  right  for  you;  and  in  the  meanwhile, 
if  there's  any  of  you  who  are  my  neighbors  who  want  a 
day's  holiday,  or  a  cup  to  drink  with  friends,  or  a  copy  of 
the  King's  likeness — why,  I'm  your  man.  I'm  net  a  paper 
handbill — all  words  and  no  substance — nor  a  man  with 
land  and  nothing  else;  I've  got  bags  of  gold  as  well  as 
land.'  I  think  you  know  what  I  mean  by  the  King's 
likeness." 

Here  Mr.  Johnson  took  a  half-crown  out  of  his  pocket 
and  held  the  head  toward  the  comjiany. 

"Well,  sirs,  there  are  some  men  who  like  to  keep  this 
pretty  picture  a  great  deal  too  much  to  themselves.  I 
don't  know  whether  I'm  right,  but  I  think  I've  heard  of 
such  a  one  not  a  hundred  miles  from  here.  I  think  his 
name  was  Spratt,  and  he  managed  some  company's  coal- 
pits." 

"Haw,  haw!  Spratt — Spratt's  his  name,"  was  rolled 
forth  to  an  accomjjaniment  of  scraping  shoe-soles. 

"A  screwing  fellow,  by  what  I  understand — a  domineer- 
ing fellow — who  would  expect  men  to  do  as  he  liked  with- 
out paying  them  for  it.  I  think  there's  not  an  honest 
man  wouldn't  like  to  disappoint  such  an  upstart." 

There  was  a  murmur  which  was  interpreted  by  Mr. 
Chubb.     "I'll  answer  for  'em,  sir." 

"Now,  listen  to  me.  Here's  Garstin:  he's  one  of  the 
Company  you  work  under.  What's  Garstin  to  you?  who 
sees  him?  and  when  they  do  see  him  they  see  a  thin  miserly 
fellow  who  keeps  his  pockets  buttoned.  He  calls  himself 
a  Whig,  yet  he'll  split  votes  with  a  Tory — he'll  drive  with 
the  Debarrys.  Now,  gentlemen,  if  I  said  I'd  got  a  vote, 
and  anybody  asked  me  what  I  should  do  with  it,  I  should 
say,  'I'll  plump  for  Transome.'  You've  got  no  votes,  and 
that's  a  shame.  But  you  will  have  some  day,  if  such  men 
as  Transome  are  returned;  and  then  you'll  be  on  a  level 
with  the  first  gentleman  in  the  land,  and  if  he  wants  to 


THE    RADICAL.  133 

sit  in  Parliament,  he  must  take  off  his  hat  and  ask  your 
leave.  But  though  you  haven't  got  a  vote  you  can  give  a 
cheer  for  the  right  man,  and  Transome's  not  a  man  like 
Garstin;  if  you  lost  a  day's  wages  by  giving  a  cheer  for 
Transome,  he'll  make  you  amends.  That's  the  way  a  man 
who  has  no  vote  can  serve  himself  and  his  country;  he  can 
lift  up  his  hand  and  shout  'Transome  forever!' — 'hurray 
for  Transome!'  Let  the  working  men — let  the  colliers 
and  navvies  and  stonecutters,  who  between  you  and  me 
have  a  good  deal  too  much  the  worst  of  it,  as  things  are 
now — let  them  join  together  and  give  their  hands  and  voices 
for  the  right  man,  and  they'll  make  the  great  people  shake 
in  their  shoes  a  little;  and  when  you  shout  for  Transome, 
remember  you  shout  for  more  wages,  and  more  of  your 
rights,  and  you  shout  to  get  rid  of  rats  and  sprats  and 
such  small  animals,  who  are  the  tools  the  rich  make  use 
of  to  squeeze  the  blood  out  of  the  poor  man." 

"I  wish  there'd  be  a  row  —  I'd  pommel  him,"  said 
Dredge,  who  was  generally  felt  to  be  speaking  to  the  ques- 
tion. 

"No,  no,  my  friend — there  you're  a  little  wrong.  No 
pommeling — no  striking  first.  There  you  have  the  law 
and  the  constable  against  you.  A  little  rolling  in  the  dust 
and  knocking  hats  off,  a  little  pelting  wath  soft  things 
that'll  stick  and  not  bruise — all  that  doesn't  spoil  the  fun. 
If  a  man  is  to  speak  when  you  don't  like  to  hear  him,  it  is 
but  fair  you  should  give  him  something  he  doesn't  like  in 
return.  And  the  same  if  he's  got  a  vote  and  doesn't  use 
it  for  the  good  of  the  country;  I  see  no  harm  in  splitting 
his  coat  in  a  quiet  way.  A  man  must  be  taught  what's 
right  if  he  doesn't  know  it.  But  no  kicks,  no  knocking 
down,  no  pommeling." 

"It  'ud  be  good  fun,  ti,  "igh,  if  iio-be,"  said  Old  Sleek, 
allowing  himself  an  imagiiu  tive  pleasure. 

"Well,  well,  if  a  Spratt  >vants  you  to  say  Garstin,  it's 
some  pleasure  to  think  you  can  say  Transome.  Now,  my 
notion  is  this.  You  are  men  who  can  jiut  two  and  two 
together — I  don't  know  a  more  solid  lot  of  fellows  than 
you  are;  and  what  I  say  is,  let  the  honest  men  in  this 
country  who've  got  no  vote  show  themselves  in  a  body 
Avhen  they  have  the  chance.  Why,  sirs,  for  every  Tory 
sneak  that's  got  a  vote,  there's  fifty-five  fellows  who  must 
stand  by  and  be  expected  to.  hold  their  tongues.  But  I 
say  let  'em  hiss  the  sneaks,  let  'cm  groan  at  the  sneaks, 
and    the   sneaks  will    be  ashamed  of   themselves.      The 


134  FELIX   HOLT, 

men  who've  got  votes  don't  know  liow  to  u&i/  chem. 
There's  many  a  fool  with  a  vote,  who  is  not  sure  in  his 
mind  whether  he  shall  poll,  say  forDebarry,  or  Gai^tin,  or 
Transome — whether  he'll  plump  or  whether  he'll  split;  a 
straw  will  turn  him.  Let  him  know  your  mind  if  he 
doesn't  know  his  own.  What's  the  reason  Debarry  gets 
returned?  Because  people  are  frightened  at  the  Debarry's. 
What's  that  to  you?  You  don't  care  for  the  Debarrys.  If 
people  are  frightened  at  the  Tories,  we'll  turn  round  and 
frighten  them.  You  know  what  a  Tory  is — one  who  wants 
to  drive  the  working  man  as  he'd  drive  cattle.  That's  what 
a  Tory  is;  and  a  Whig  is  no  better,  if  he's  like  Garstm. 
A  Whig  wants  to  knock  the  Tory  down  and  get  the  whip, 
that's  all.  But  Transome's  neither  Whig  nor  Tory;  he's 
the  working  man's  friend,  the  collier's  friend,  the  friend 
of  the  honest  navvy.  And  if  he  gets  into  Parliament,  let 
me  tell  you,  it  will  be  the  better  for  you.  I  don't  say  it 
will  be  the  better  for  overlookers  and  screws,  and  rats  and 
sprats;  but  it  will  be  the  better  for  every  good  fellow  who 
takes  his  pot  at  the  Sugar  Loaf." 

Mr.  Johnson's  exertions  for  the  political  education  of 
the  Sproxton  men  did  not  stop  here,  which  was  the  more 
disinterested  in  him  as  he  did  not  expect  to  see  them  again, 
and  could  only  set  on  foot  an  organization  by  which  their 
instruction  could  be  continued  without  him.  In  this  he 
was  quite  successful.  A  man  known  among  the  "  butties" 
as  Pack,  who  had  already  been  mentioned  by  Mr.  Chubb, 
presently  joined  the  party,  and  had  a  private  audience  of 
Mr.  Johnson,  that  he  might  be  instituted  as  the  "shep- 
herd "  of  this  new  flock. 

"That's  a  right  down  genelman,"  said  Pack,  as  he  took 
the  seat  vacated  by  the  orator,  who  had  ridden  away. 

"What's  his  trade,  tkink  you?'' said  Gills,  the  wiry 
stone-cutter, 

"Trade?"  said  Mr.  Chubb.  "He's  one  of  the  top- 
sawyers  of  the  country.  He  works  with  his  head,  you 
may  see  that." 

"  Let's  have  our  pipes,  then,"  said  Old  Sleek;  "  I'm 
pretty  well  tired  o'  jaw." 

"So  am  I,"  said  Dredge.  "It's  wriggling  work — like 
follering  u  stoat.  It  makes  a  man  dry.  I'd  as  lief  hear 
preaching,  on'y  there's  naught  to  be  got  by't.  I  shouldn't 
know  which  end  I  stood  on  if  it  wasn't  for  the  tickets  and 
the  treatin'." 


THE   RADICAL.  135 


CHAPTEE  XII. 

"Oh,  sir,  'twas  that  mixture  of  spite  and  over-fed  merriment  which 
passes  for  humor  with  the  vulgar.  In  tlieir  fun  they  have  much  resem- 
blance to  a  turkey-cock.  It  has  a  cruel  beak,  and  a  siUy  iteration  of  ugly 
sounds ;  it  spreads  its  tail  in  self-glorification,  but  shows  you  the  wrong  side 
of  that  ornament — liking  admiration,  but  knowing  not  what  is  admirable." 

This  Sunday  evening,  which  promised  to  be  so  memo- 
rable in  tlie  experience  of  the  Sproxton  miners,  had  its 
drama  also  .for  those  unsatisfactory  objects  to  Mr.  John- 
son's moral  sense,  the  Debarrys.  Certain  incidents  occur- 
ring at  Treby  Manor  caused  an  excitement  there  which 
spread  from  the  dining-room  to  the  stables;  but  no  one 
underwent  such  agitating  transitions  of  feeling  as  Mr. 
Scales.  At  six  o'clock  that  superior  butler  was  chuckling 
in  triumph  at  having  played  a  fine  and  original  practical 
joke  on  his  rival,  Mr.  Christian.  Some  two  hours  after 
that  time  he  was  frightened,  sorry,  and  even  meek;  he  was 
on  the  brink  of  a  humiliating  confession;  his  cheeks  were 
almost  livid:  his  hair  was  flattened  for  want  of  due  atten- 
tion from  his  fingers;  and  the  fine  roll  of  his  whiskers, 
which  was  too  firm  to  give  way,  seemed  only  a  sad  reminis- 
cence of  past  splendor  and  felicity.  His  sorrow  came  about 
in  this  wise. 

After  service  on  that  Sunday  morning,  Mr.  Philip 
Debarry  had  left  the  rest  of  the  family  to  go  home  in  the 
carriage,  and  had  remained  at  the  rectory  to  lunch  with 
his  uncle  Augustus,  that  he  might  consult  him  touching 
some  letters  of  importance.  He  had  returned  the  letters 
to  his  pocket-book  but  had  not  returned  the  book  to  his 
pocket,  and  he  finally  walked  away  leaving  the  enclosure 
of  private  papers  and  bank-notes  on  his  uncle's  escritoire. 
After  his  arrival  at  home  he  was  reminded  of  his  omission, 
and  immediately  dispatched  Christian  with  a  note  begging 
his  uncle  to  seal  up  the  pocket-book  and  send  it  by  the 
bearer.  This  commission,  which  was  given  between  throe 
and  four  o'clock,  happened  to  be  very  unwelcome  to  the 
courier.  The  fact  Avas  that  Mr.  Christian,  who  had  been 
remarkable  through  life  for  that  power  of  adapting  him- 
self to  circumstances  which  enables  a  man  to  fall  safely  on 
all-fours  in  the  most  hurried  exjiulsions  and  escapes,  was 
not  exempt  from  bodily  suffering — a  circumstance  to  which 
there  is  no  known  way  of  adapting  one's  self  so  as  to  be 
perfectly  comfortable  under  it,  or  to  push  it  off  on  to  other 


136  FELIX   HOLT, 

people's  shoulders.  He  did  what  he  could:  he  took  doses 
of  opium  when  he  had  an  access  of  nervous  pains,  and  he 
consoled  himself  as  to  future  possibilities  by  thinking  that 
if  the  pains  ever  became  intolerably  frequent,  a  consider- 
able increase  in  the  dose  might  put  an  end  to  them  alto- 
gether. He  was  neither  Cato  nor  Hamlet,  and  though 
he  had  learned  their  soliloquies  at  his  first  boarding-school, 
he  would  probably  have  increased  his  dose  without  reciting 
those  masterpieces.  Next  to  the  pain  itself  he  disliked 
that  any  one  should  know  of  it:  defective  health  dimin- 
ished a  man's  market  value;  he  did  not  like  to  be  the 
object  of  the  sort  of  pity  he  himself  gave  to  a  poor  devil 
who  was  forced  to  make  a  wry  face  or  "  give  in  "  altogether. 

He  had  felt  it  expedient  to  take  a  slight  dose  this  after- 
noon, and  still  he  was  not  altogether  relieved  at  the  time 
he  set  off  to  the  rectory.  On  returning  with  the  valuable 
case  safely  deposited  in  his  hind  pocket,  he  felt  increasing 
bodily  uneasiness,  and  took  another  dose.  Thinking  it 
likely  that  he  looked  rather  pitiable,  he  chose  not  to  pro- 
ceed to  the  house  by  the  carriage-road.  The  servants 
often  walked  in  the  park  on  a  Sunday,  and  he  wished  to 
avoid  any  meeting.  He  would  make  a  circuit,  get  into 
the  house  privately,  and  after  delivering  his  packet  to 
Mr.  Debarry,  shut  himself  up  till  the  ringing  of  the 
half-hour  bell.  But  when  he  reached  an  elbowed  seat 
under  some  sycamores,  he  felt  so  ill  at  ease  that  he  yielded 
to  the  temptation  of  throwing  himself  on  it  to  rest  a 
little.  He  looked  at  his  watch:  it  was  but  five;  he  had 
done  his  errand  quickly  hitherto,  and  Mr.  Debarry  had 
not  urged  haste.  But  in  less  than  ten  minutes  he  was  in  a 
sound  sleep.  Certain  cond-itions  of  his  system  had  deter- 
mined a  stronger  effect  than  usual  from  the  opium. 

As  he  had  expected,  there  were  servants  strolling  in  the 
park,  but  they  did  not  all  choose  the  most  frequented 
part.  Mr.  Scales,  in  pursuit  of  a  slight  flirtation  with  the 
younger  lady's  maid,  had  preferred  a  more  sequestered 
walk  in  the  company  of  that  agreeable  nymph.  And  it 
happened  to  be  this  pair,  of  all  others,  who  alighted  on 
the  sleeping  Christian  —  a  sight  which  at  the  very  first 
moment  caused  Mr.  Scales  a  vague  pleasure  as  at  an 
incident  that  must  lead  to  something  clever  on  his  part. 
To  play  a  trick,  and  make  some  one  or  other  look  foolish, 
was  held  the  most  pointed  form  of  wit  throughout  the 
back  regions  of  the  Manor,  and  served  as  a  constant  sub- 
stitute for  theatrical  entertainment:  what  the  farce  wanted 


THE    RADICAL.  13? 

in  costume  or  "make  up"  it  gained  in  the  reality  of  the 
mortification  which  excited  the  general  laughter.  And 
lo!  here  was  the  offensive,  the  exasperatingly  cool  and 
superior  Christian,  caught  comparatively  helpless,  with 
his  head  hanging  on  his  shoulder,  and  one  coat-tail 
hanging  out  heavily  below  the  elbow  of  the  rustic  seat. 
It  was  this  coat-tail  which  served  as  a  suggestion  to  Mr. 
Scales's  genius.  Putting  his  finger  up  in  warning  to 
Mrs.  Cherry,  and  saying,  "Hush  —  be  quiet  —  I  see  a  fine 
bit  of  fun" — he  took  a  knife  from  his  pocket,  stepped 
behind  the  unconscious  Christian,  and  quickly  cut  off  the 
pendant  coat-tail.  Scales  knew  nothing  of  the  errand  to 
the  rectory;  and  as  he  noticed  that  there  was  something  in 
the  pocket,  thought  it  was  probably  a  large  cigar-case.  So 
much  the  better — he  had  no  time  to  joause.  He  threw 
tlie  coat-tail  as  far  as  he  could,  and  noticed  that  it  fell 
among  the  elms  under  which  they  had  been  walking. 
Then,  beckoning  to  ]\Irs.  Cherry,  he  hurried  away  with 
her  toward  the  more  open  part  of  the  park,  not  daring 
to  explode  in  laughter  until  it  was  safe  from  the  chance  of 
waking  the  sleeper.  And  then  the  vision  of  the  graceful, 
well-appointed  Mr.  Christian,  who  sneered  at  Scales  about 
his  "get  uj),"  having  to  walk  back  to  tlie  house  with  only 
one  tail  to  his  coat,  was  a  source  of  so  much  enjoyment  to 
the  butler,  that  the  fair  Cherry  began  to  be  quite  jealous 
of  the  joke.  Still  she  admitted  that  it  really  was  funny, 
tittered  intei-mittently,  and  pledged  herself  to  secrecy. 
Mr.  Scales  exj^lained  to  her  that  Christian  would  try  to 
creep  in  unobserved,  but  that  this  must  be  made  imjjos- 
sible;  aiid  he  requested  her  to  imagine  the  figure  this 
interloping  fellow  would  cut  when  everybody  was  asking 
what  had  hai)pened.  "Hallo,  Christian!  where's  your 
coat  tail?"  would  become  a  proverb  at  the  Manor,  Avhere 
jokes  kept  remarkably- well  without  the  aid  of  salt;  and 
Mr.  Christian's  comb  would  be  cut  so  effectually  that  it 
would  take  a  long  time  to  grow  again.  Exit  Scales,  laugli- 
i  ng,  and  presenting  a  fine  example  of  dramatic  irony"  to 
any  one  in  the  secret  of  Fate. 

Wlien  Cliristian  awoke,  he  was  shocked  to  find  himself 
in  the  twilight.  He  started  uj),  shook  himself,  missed 
something,  and  soon  became  aware  what  it  was  he  missed. 
He  did  not  doubt  that  he  had  been  robbed,  and  he  at  once 
foresaw  that  the  consequences  would  be  highly  unpleasant. 
In  no  way  could  the  cause  of  the  accident  be  so  represented 
to  Mr.  Philip  Debarry  as  to  prevent  him  from  viewing  his 


138  FELIX   HOLT, 

hitherto  unimpeachable  factotum  in  a  new  and  unfavorrible 
light.  And  though  Mr.  Christian  did  not  regard  his 
jiresent  position  as  brilliant,  he  did  not  see  his  way  to  an}^- 
thmg  better.  A  man  nearly  fifty  who  is  not  always  quite 
well  is  seldom  ardently  hopeful:  he  is  aware  that  this  is  a 
world  in  which  merit  is  often  overlooked.  With  the  idea 
of  robbery  in  full  possession  of  his  mind,  to  peer  about  and 
search  in  the  dimness,  even  if  it  had  occurred  to  him, 
would  have  seemed  a  preposterous  waste  of  time  and 
energy.  He  knew  it  was  likely  that  Mr.  Debarry's  pocket- 
book  had  important  and  valuable  contents,  and  that  he 
should  deepen  his  offense  by  deferring  his  announcement 
of  the  unfortunate  fact.  He  hastened  back  to  the  house, 
relieved  by  the  obscurity  from  that  mortification  of  his 
vanity  on  which  the  butler  had  counted.  Indeed,  to  Scales 
himself  the  affair  had  already  begun  to  appear  less 
thoroughly  jocose  than  he  had  anticipated.  For  he  ob- 
served that  Christian's  non-appearance  before  dinner  had 
caused  Mr.  Debarry  some  consternation;  and  he  had 
gathered  that  the  courier  had  been  sent  on  a  commission  to 
the  rectory.  "  My  uncle  must  have  detained  him  for  some 
reason  or  other,'"  he  heard  Mr.  Philip  say; '' ' but  it  is  odd.  If 
he  were  less  trusty  about  commissions,  or  had  ever  seemed  to 
drink  too  much,  I  should  be  uneasy."  Altogether  the  affair 
was  not  taking'the  turn  Mr.  Scales  had  intended.  At  last, 
when  dinner  had  been  removed,  and  the  butler's  chief  duties 
were  at  an  end,  it  was  understood  that  Christian  had  entered 
without  his  coat  tail,  looking  serious  and  even  agitated; 
that  he  had  asked  leave  at  once  to  speak  to  Mr.  Debarry;  and 
that  he  was  even  then  in  parley  with  the  gentleman  in  the 
dining-room.  Scales  was  in  alarm;  it  must  have  been 
some  property  of  Mr.  Debarry's  that  had  weighted  the 
pocket.  He  took  a  lantern,  got  a  groom  to  accompany 
him  with  another  lantern,  and  with  the  utmost  practical 
speed  reached  the  fatal  spot  in  the  park.  He  searched 
under  the  elms — he  was  certain  that  the  pocket  had  fallen 
there — and  he  found  the  pocket;  but  he  found  it  empty, 
ana,  in  spite  of  further  search,  did  not  find  the  contents, 
though  he  had  at  first  consoled  himself  with  thinking  that 
they  had  fallen  out,  and  would  be  lying  not  far  off.  He 
returned  with  the  lanterns  and  the  coat  tail  and  a  most 
uncomfortable  consciousness  in  that  great  seat  of  a  butler's 
emotion,  the  stomach.  He  had  no  sooner  re-entered  than 
he  was  met  by  Mrs.  Cherry,  pale  and  anxious,  who  drew 
him  aside  to  say  that  if  he  didn't  tell  everything  she  would; 


THE    EADICAL.  139 

that  tlis  constables  were  to  be  sent  for;  that  there  had 
been  no  end  of  bank-notes  and  letters  and  things  in  Mr. 
Debarry^s  pocket-book,  which  Christian  was  carrying  in 
that  very  pocket  Scales  had  cut  off;  that  the  rector  was 
sent  for,  the  constable  was  coming,  and  they  should  all  be 
hanged.  Mr.  Scales's  own  intellect  was  anything  but  clear 
as  to  the  possible  issues.  Crest-fallen,  and  with  the  coat- 
tail  in  his  hands  as  an  attestation  that  he  was  innocent  of 
anything  more  than  a  joke,  he  went  and  made  his  confes- 
sion. His  story  relieved  Christian  a  little,  but  did  not 
relieve  Mr.  Debarry,  who  was  more  annoyed  at  the  loss  of 
the  letters,  and  the  chance  of  their  getting  into  hands  that 
might  make  use  of  them,  than  at  the  loss  of  the  bank- 
notes. Kothing  could  be  done  for  the  present,  but  that 
the  rector,  who  was  a  magistrate,  should  instruct  the  con- 
stables, and  that  the  spot  in  the  park  indicated  by  Scales 
should  again  be  carefully  searched.  This  was  done,  but  in 
vain;  and  many  of  the  family  at  the  Manor  had  disturbed 
sleep  that  night.  » 


CHAPTER  XIII. 


*■  Give  sorrow  leave  awhile,  to  tutor  me 
To  this  submission." — Michard  II. 


MEA2q"WHiLE  Felix  Holt  had  been  making  his  way  back 
from  Sproxton  to  Treby  in  some  irritation  and  bitterness 
of  spirit.  For  a  little  while  he  walked  slowly  along  the 
direct  road,  hoping  that  Mr.  Johnson  would  overtake  him, 
in  which  case  he  would  have  the  pleasure  of  quarreling 
with  him,  and  telling  him  what  he  thought  of  his  inten- 
tions in  coming  to  cant  at  the  Sugar  Loaf.  But  he  pres- 
ently checked  himself  in  this  folly  and  turned  off  again 
toward  the  canal,  that  he  might  avoid  the  temptation  of 
getting  into  a  passion  to  no  purpose. 

"Where's  the  good,"  he  thought,  ''of  pulling  at  such  a 
tangled  skein  as  this  electioneering  trickery?  As  long  as 
three  fourths  of  the  men  in  this  country  see  nothing  in  an 
election  but  self-interest,  and  nothing  in  self-interest  but 
some  form  of  greed,  one  might  as  well  try  to  purify  the 
proceedings  of  the  fishes,  and  say  to  a  hungry  cod-fish  — 
'My  good  friend,  abstain;  don't  goggle  your  eyes  so,  or 
show  such  a  stupid  gluttonous  mouth,  or  think  the  little 


140  FELIX  HOLT, 

fishes  are  worth  nothing  except  in  relation  to  your  own 
inside."  He'd  be  open  to  no  argument  short  of  crimping 
him.  I  should  get  into  a  rage  with  this  fellow,  and  per- 
haps end  by  thrashing  him. "  There's  some  reason  m  me 
as  long  as  I  keep  my  temper,  but  my  rash  humor  is  drunken- 
ness without  wine.  I  shouldn't  wonder  if  he  upsets  all  my 
plans  with  these  colliers.  Of  course  he's  going  to  treat 
them  for  the  sake  of  getting  up  a  posse  at  the  nomination 
and  speechify ings.  They'll  drink  double,  and  never  come 
near  me  on  a  Saturday  evening.  I  don't  know  what  sort  of 
man  Transome  really  is.  It's  no  use  my  speaking  to  any- 
body else,  but  if  I  could  get  at  him,  he  might  put  a  veto 
on  this  thing.  Though,  when  .once  the  men  have  been 
promised  and  set  agoing*,  the  mischief  is  likely  to  be  past 
mending.  Hang  the  liberal  cod-fish!  I  shouldn't  have 
minded  so  much  if  he'd  been  a  Tory!" 

Felix  went  along  in  the  twilight  struggling  in  this  way 
with  the  intricacies  of  life,  which  would  certainly  be 
greatly  simplified  if  corrupt  practices  were  the  invariable 
mark  of  wrong  opinions.  When  he  had  crossed  the  com- 
mon and  had  entered  the  park,  the  overshadowing  trees 
deepened  the  gray  gloom  of  the  evening;  it  was  useless 
to  try  and  keep  the  blind  path,  and  he  could  only  be 
careful  that  his  steps  should  be  bent  in  the  direction  of  the 
park  gate.  He  was  striding  along  rapidly  now,  whistling 
"Bannockburn"  in  a  subdued  way  as  an  accompaniment 
to  his  inward  discussion,  when  something  smooth  and 
soft  on  which  his  foot  alighted  arrested  him  with  an 
unpleasant  startling  sensation,  and  made  him  stoop  to 
examine  the  object  he  was  treading  on.  He  found  it  to  be 
a  large  leather  pocket-book  swelled  by  its  contents,  and 
fastened  with  a  sealed  ribbon  as  well  as  a  clasp.  In  stoop- 
ing he  saw  about  a  yard  off  something  whitish  and  square 
lying  on  the  dark  grass.  This  was  an  ornamental  note- 
book of  pale  leather  stamped  with  gold.  Apparently  it 
had  burst  open  in  falling,  and  out  of  the  pocket,  formed 
by  the  cover,  there  protruded  a  small  gold  chain  about 
four  inches  long,  with  various  seals  and  other  trifles 
attached  to  it  by  a  ring  at  the  end.  Felix  thrust  the  chain 
back,  and  finding  that  the  clasp  of  the  note-book  was 
broken,  he  closed  it  and  thrust  it  into  his  side-pocket, 
walking  along  under  some  annoyance  that  fortune  had 
made  him  the  finder  of  articles  belonging  most  probably  to 
one  of  the  family  at  Treby  Manor,  fle  was  much  too 
proud  a  man  to  like  any  contact  with  the  aristocracy,  and 


THE    RADICAL.  141 

he  could  still  less  endure  coming  within  speech  of  their 
servants.  Some  plan  must  be  devised  by  which  he  could 
avoid  carrying  these  things  up  to  the  Manor  himself:  he 
thought  at  first  of  leaving  them  at  the  lodge,  but  he  had 
a  scrujile  against  placing  projjerty,  of  which  the  owner- 
ship was  after  all  uncertain,  in  the  hands  of  persons 
unknown  to  him.  It  was  possible  that  the  large  pocket- 
book  contained  papers  of  high  importance,  and  that  it 
did  not  belong  to  any  of  the  Debarry  family.  He  resolved 
at  last  to  carry  his  findings  to  Mr.  Lyon,  who  would  per- 
haps be  good-natured  enough  to  save  him  from  the 
necessary  transactions  with  the  people  at  the  Manor  by 
undertaking  those  transactions  himself.  With  this  deter- 
mination he  walked  straight  to  Malthouse  Yard,  and 
waited  outside  the  chapel  until  the  congregation  was  dis- 
persing, when  he  j)assed  along  the  aisle  to  the  vestry  in 
order  to  speak  to  the  minister  in  private. 

But  Mr.  Lyon  was  not  alone  when  Felix  entered.  Mr. 
Nuttwood,  the  grocer,  who  was  one  of  the  deacons,  was 
complaining  to  him  about  the  obstinate  demeanor  of  the 
singers,  who  had  declined  to  change  the  tunes  in  accord- 
ance with  a  change  in  the  selection  of  hymns,  and  had 
stretched  short  metre  into  long  out  of  pure  willfulness 
and  defiance,  irreverently  adapting  the  most  sacred  mono- 
syllables to  a  multitude  of  wandering  quavers,  arranged, 
it  was  to  be  feared,  by  gome  musician  who  was  inspired  by 
conceit  rather  than  by  the  true  spirit  of  psalmody. 

"Come  in,  my  friend,"  said  Mr.  Lyon,  smiling  at  Felix, 
and  then  continuing  in  a  faint  voice,  while  he  wiped  the 
perspiration  from  his  brow  and  bald  crown,  "Brother 
Nuttwood,  we  must  be  content  to  carry  a  thorn  in  our 
sides  while  the  necessities  of  our  imperfect  state  demand 
that  there  should  be  a  body  set  apart  and  called  a  choir, 
whose  special  office  it  is  to  lead  the  singing,  not  because 
they  are  more  disposed  to  the  devout  uplifting  of  praise, 
but  because  they  are  endowed  with  better  vocal  organs, 
and  have  attained  more  of  the  musician's  art.  For  all 
office,  unless  it  be  accompanied  by  peculiar  grace,  becomes, 
as  it  were,  a  diseased  organ,  seeking  to  make  itself  too 
much  of  a  centre.  Singers,  specially  so  called,  are,  it 
must  be  confessed,  an  anomaly  among  us  who  seek  to 
reduce  the  Church  to  its  primitive  simplicity,  and  to  cast 
away  all  that  may  obstruct  the  direct  communion  of  spirit 
with  spirit." 

"  They  are  so  headstrong,"  said  Mr.  Nuttwood,  in  a  tone 


142  PELIX   HOLT, 

of  sad  perplexity,  ''that  if  we  dealt  not  warily  with  them 
they  might  end  in  dividing  the  church,  even  now  that  we 
have  had  the  chapel  enlarged.  Brother  Kemp  would  side 
with  them,  and  draw  the  half  part  of  the  members  after 
him.  I  cannot  but  think  it  a  snare  when  a  professing 
Christian  has  a  bass  voice  like  Brother  Kemp's.  It  makes 
him  desire  to  be  heard  of  men;  but  the  weaker  song  of  the 
humble  may  have  more  power  in  the  ear  of  God." 

"  Do  you  think  it  any  better  vanity  to  flatter  yourself 
that  God  likes  to  hear  you,  though  men  don't?"  said  Felix, 
with  unwarrantable  bluntness. 

The  civil  grocer  was  prepared  to  be  scandalised  by  any- 
thing that  came  from  Felix.  In  common  with  many  hear- 
ers in  Malthouse  Yard,  he  already  felt  an  objection  to  a 
young  man  who  was  notorious  for  having  interfered  in  a 
question  of  Avholesale  and  retail,  which  should  have  been 
left  to  Providence.  Old  Mr.  Holt,  being  a  church  member, 
had  probably  had  "leadings"  which  were  more  to  be  relied 
on  than  his  son's  boasted  knowledge.  In  any  case,  a  little 
visceral  disturbance  and  inward  chastisement  to  the  consum- 
ers of  questionable  medicines  would  tend  less  to  obscure 
the  divine  glory  than  a  show  of  punctilious  morality  in  one 
who  was  not  a  "professor,"  Besides,  how  was  it  to  be 
known  that  the  medicines  would  not  be  blessed,  if  taken 
with  due  trust  in  a  higher  influence?  A  Christian  must 
consider  not  the  medicines  alone  in  their  relation  to  our 
frail  bodies  (which  are  dust),  but  the  medicines  with 
Omnipotence  behind  them.  Hence  a  pious  vender  will 
look  for  "leadings,"  and  he  is  likely  to  find  them  in  the 
cessation  of  demand  and  the  disproportion  of  expenses  and 
returns.  The  grocer  was  thus  on  his  guard  against  the 
presumptuous  disputant. 

"  Mr.  Lyon  may  understand  you,  sir,"  he  replied.  "  He 
seems  to  be  fond  of  your  conversation.  But  you  have  too 
much  of  the  pride  of  human  learning  for  me.  I  follow  no 
new  lights." 

"  Then  follow  an  old  one,"  said  Felix,  mischievously 
disposed  toward  a  sleek  tradesman.  "  Fdiaw  the  light  of 
the  old-fashioned  Presbyterians  tliat  I'x  *,  heard  sing  at 
Glasgow.  The  preacher  gives  out  the  psalm,  and  then 
everybody  sings  a  different  tune,  as  it  happens  to  turn. up 
in  their  throats.  It's  a  domineering  thing  to  set  a  tune 
and  expect  everybody  else  to  follow  it.  It's  a  denial  of 
private  judgment." 

"Hush,  hush,  my  young  friend,"  said  Mr.  Lyon,  hurt 


THE    KADICAL.  143 

by  this  levity,  which  glanced  at  himself  as  well  as  at  the 
deacon.  "  Play  not  with  paradoxes.  That  caustic  which 
you  handle  in  order  to  scorch  others,  may  happen  to  sear 
your  own  fingers  and  make  them  dead  to  the  quality  of 
things.  'Tis  difficult  enough  to  see  our  way  and  keep 
our  torch  steady  in  this  dim  labyrinth:  to  whirl  the 
torch  and  dazzle  the  eyes  of  our  fellow-seekers  is  a  poor 
daring,  and  may  end  in  total  darkness.  You  yourself  are 
a  lover  of  freedom,  and  a  bold  rebel  against  usurping  author- 
ity. But  the  right  to  rebellion  is  the  right  to  seek  a  higher 
rule,  and  not  to  wander  in  mere  lawlessness.  Where- 
fore, I  beseech  you,  seem  not  to  say  that  liberty  is  license. 
And  I  apprehend — though  I  am  not  endowed  with  an  ear 
to  seize  those  earthly  harmonies,  whicli  to  some  devout 
souls  have  seemed,  as  it  were,  the  broken  echoes  of  the 
heavenly  choir — I  apprehend  that  there  is  a  law  in  music, 
disobedience  whereunto  would  bring  us  in  our  singing  to 
the  level  of  shrieking  maniacs  or  howling  beasts:  so  that 
herein  we  are  well  instructed  how  true  liberty  can  be 
nought  but  the  transfer  of  obedience  from  the  will  of  one 
or  of  a  few  men  to  that  will  which  is  the  norm  or  rule  for 
all  men.  And  though  the  transfer  may  sometimes  be  but 
an  erroneous  direction  of  search,  yet  is  the  search  good 
and  necessary  to  the  ultimate  finding.  And  even  as  in 
music,  where  all  obey  and  concur  to  one  end,  so  that  each 
has  the  joy  of  contributing  to  a  whole  whereby  he  is 
ravished  and  lifted  up  into  the  courts  of  heaven,  so  will  it 
be  in  that  crowning  time  of  the  millennial  reign,  when  our 
daily  prayer  will  be  fulfilled,  and  one  law  shall  be  written 
on  all  hearts,  and  be  the  very  structure  of  all  thought,  and 
be  the  principle  of  all  action.'' 

Tired,  even  exhausted,  as  the  minister  had  been  when 
Felix  Holt  entered,  the  gathering  excitement  of  speech 
gave  more  and  more  energy  to  his  voice  and  manner;  he 
walked  away  from  the  vestry  table,  he  paused,  and  came 
back  to  it;  "he  Avalkod  away  again,  then  came  back,  and 
ended  with  his  deepest  tonecf  largo,  keeping  his  hands 
clasped  behind  liim,  while  his  brown  eyes  wore  bright  with 
the  lasting  yout  hfulness  of  enthusiastic  thought  and  love. 
But  to  any  one  who  had  no  share  in  the  energies  that  were 
thrilling  his  little  body,  he  would  have  looked  queer 
enough.  No  sooner  had  he  finished  his  eager  speech,  than 
he  hold  out  his  hand  to  the  deacon,  and  said,  in  his  former 
faint  tone  of  fatigue — 

"  God  be  with  you,  brother.     We  shall  meet  to-morrow. 


144  FELIX    HOLT, 

and  we  will  see  what  can  be  done  to  subdue  these  refract- 
ory spirits." 

When  the  deacon  was  gone,  Felix  said,  "Forgive  me, 
Mr.  Lyon;  I  was  wrong,  and  you  are  right." 

"  Yes,  yes,  my  friend,  you  have  that  mark  of  grace 
within  you,  that  you  are  ready  to  acknowledge  the  justice 
of  a  rebuke.  Sit  down;  you  have  something  to  say — some 
packet  there." 

They  sat  down  at  a  corner  of  the  small  table,  and  Felix 
drew  the  note-book  from  his  pocket  to  lay  it  down  with 
the  pocket-book,  saying — 

"  I've  had  the  ill-luck  to  be  the  finder  of  these  things 
in  the  Debarrys'  Park.  Most  likely  they  belong  to  one  of 
the  family  at  the  Manor,  or  to  some  grandee  who  is  stay- 
ing there.  I  hate  having  anything  to  do  with  such  people. 
They'll  think  me  a  j^oor  rascal,  and  offer  me  money.  You 
are  a  known  man,  and  I  thought  you  would  be  kind 
enough  to  relieve  me  by  taking  charge  of  these  things,  and 
writing  to  Debarry,  not  mentioning  me,  and  asking  him 
to  send  some  one  for  them.  I  found  them  on  the  grass  in 
the  park  this  evening  about  half -past  seven,  in  the  corner 
we  cross  going  to  Sproxton." 

"  Stay,"  said  Mr.  Lyon,  "this  little  book  is  open;  we 
may  venture  to  look  in  it  for  some  sign  of  ownership. 
There  be  others  who  possess  property,  and  might  be  cross- 
ing that  end  of  the  park,  besides  the  Debarrys." 

As  he  lifted  the  note-book  close  to  his  eyes,  the  chain 
again  slipped  out.  He  arrested  it  and  held  it  in  his 
hand,  while  he  examined  some  writing,  which  appeared  to 
be  a  name  on  the  inner  leather.  He  looked  long,  as  if  he 
were  trying  to  decipher  something  that  was  partly  rubbed 
out;  and  his  hands  began  to  tremble  noticeably.  He  made 
a  movement  in  an  agitated  manner,  as  if  he  were  going 
to  examine  the  chain  and  seals,  which  he  held  in  his  hand. 
But  he  checked  himself,  closed  his  hand  again,  and  rested 
it  on  the  table,  while  with  the  other  hand  he  jDressed  the 
sides  of  the  note-book  together. 

Felix  observed  his  agitation,  and  was  much  surprised; 
but  with  a  delicacy  of  which  he  was  callable  under- all  his 
abruptness,  he  said,  "  You  are  overcome  with  fatigue,  sir. 
I  was  thoughtless  to  tease  you  Avith  these  matters  at  the 
end  of  Sunday,  when  you  have  been  preaching  three 
sermons." 

Mr.  Lyon  did  not  speak  for  a  few  moments,  but  at  last 
he  said  — 


THE    RADICAL.  145 

^*It  is  true.  I  am  overcome.  It  was  a  name  I  saw  —  a 
name  that  called  up  a  past  sorrow.  Fear  not;  I  will  do 
what  is  needful  with  these  things.  You  may  trust  them 
to  me." 

With  trembling  fingers  he  rejilaced  the  chain,  and  tied 
both  the  large  pocket-book  and  the  note-book  in  his  hand- 
kerchief. He  was  evidently  making  a  great  effort  over 
himself.  But  when  he  had  gathered  the  knot  of  the 
handkerchief  in  his  hand  he  said  — 

''Give  me  your  arm  to  the  door,  my  friend.  I  feel  ill. 
Doubtless  I  am  over- wearied." 

The  door  was  already  open,  and  Lyddy  was  watching  for 
her  master's  return.  Felix  therefore  said  good-night  and 
passed  on,  sure  that  this  was  what  Mr.  Lyon  would  prefer. 
The  minister's  supper  of  warm  porridge  Avas  ready  by 
the  kitchen-fire,  where  he  always  took  it  on  a  Sunday 
evening,  and  afterward  smoked  his  weekly  pipe  up  the 
broad  chimney  —  the  one  great  relaxation  he  allowed  him- 
self. Smoking,  he  considered,  was  a  recreation  of  the 
travailed  spirit,  which,  if  indulged  in,  might  endear  this 
world  to  us  by  the  ignol)le  bonds  of  mere  sensuous  ease. 
Daily  smoking  might  be  lawful,  but  it  was  not  expedient. 
And  in  this  Esther  concurred  with  a  doctrinal  eagerness 
that  Avas  unusual  in  her.  It  Avas  her  habit  to  go  to  her 
own  room,  professedly  to  bed,  very  early  on  Sundays  — 
immediately  on  her  return  from  chapel  —  that  she  might 
avoid  her  father's  pipe.  But  this  evening  she  had  remained 
at  home,  under  a  true  plea  of  not  feeling  Avell;  and  Avhen 
she  heard  him  enter,  she  ran  out  of  the  parlor  to  meet  him. 

"Father,  you  are  ill,"  she  said,  as  he  tottered  to  the 
wicker-bottomed  arm-chair,  while  Lyddy  stood  by,  shaking 
her  head. 

"No,  my  dear,"  he  answered  feebly,  as  she  took  off  his 
hat  and  looked  in  his  face  inquiringly;  "I  am  Aveary." 

"  Let  me  lay  these  things  down  for  you,"  said  Esther, 
touching  the  bundle  in  the  handkerchief. 

"No;  they  are  matters  which  I  have  to  examine,"  he 
said,  laying  Ihem  on  the  table,  and  putting  his  arm  across 
them.     "Go  you  to  bed,  LA'ddy." 

"Not  me,  sir.  If  ever  a  man  looked  as  if  he  Avas  struck 
with  death,  it's  a'ou,  this  very  night  as  here  is." 

"Nonsense,  Lyddy,"  said  Esther,  angrily.  "Go  to  bed 
when  my  father  desires  it.     I  will  stay  Avith  him." 

Lyddy  Avas  electrified  by  surprise  at  this  new  behavior 
of  Miss  Esther's.     She  took  her  candle  silently  and  went. 

10 


146  FELIX   HOLT, 

"Go  you  too,  my  dear,"  said  Mr.  Lyon,  tenderly,  giving 
his  hand  to  Esther,  when  Lyddy  was  gone.  "It  is  your 
wont  to  go  early.     Why  are  you  up  ?  " 

"Let  me  lift  your  porridge  from  before  the  fire,  and 
stay  with  you,  father.     You  think  Fm  so  naughty  that  I. 
don^t  like  doing  anything  for  you,"  said  Esther,  smiling 
rather  sadly  at  him. 

'•'Child,  what  has  happened?  you  have  become  the 
image  of  your  mother  to-night,"  said  the  minister,  in  a 
loud  whisper.  The  tears  came  and  relieved  him,  while 
Esther,  who  had  stooped  to  lift  the  porridge  from  the 
fender,  paused  on  one  knee  and  looked  up  at  him. 

"She  was  very  good  to  you?"  asked  Esther,  softly. 

"Yes,  dear.  She  did  not  reject  my  affection.  She 
thought  not  scorn  of  my  love.  She  would  have  forgiven 
me,  if  I  had  erred  against  her,  from  very  tenderness. 
Could  you  forgiTB  me,  child?" 

"Father,  I  have  not  been  good  to  you;  but  I  will  be, 
I  will  be,"  said  Esther,  laying  her  head  on  his  knee. 

He  kissed  her  head.  "Go  to  bed,  my  dear;  I  would  be 
alone." 

When  Esther  was  lying  down  that  night,  she  felt  as  if 
the  little  incidents  between  herself  and  her  father  on  this 
Sunday  had  made  it  an  epoch.  Very  slight  words  and 
deeds  may  have  a  sacramental  efficacy,  if  we  can  cast  our 
self-love  behind  us,  in  order  to  say  or  do  them.  And  it 
has  been  Avell  believed  through  many  ages  that  the  begin- 
ning of  compunction  is  the  beginning  of  a  new  life;  that 
the  mind  which  sees  itself  blameless' may  be  called  dead  in 
trespasses  —  in  trespasses  on  the  love  of  others,  in  tres- 
passes on  their  weakness,  in  trespasses  on  all  those  great 
claims  which  are  the  image  of  our  own  need. 

But  Esther  persisted  in  assuring  herself  that  she  was 
not  bending  to  any  criticism  from  Felix.  She  was  full  of 
resentment  against  his  rudeness,  and  yet  more  against  his 
too  harsh  conception  of  her  character.  She  was  deter- 
mined to  keep  as  much  at  a  distance  from  him  as  possible. 


THE    RADICAL.  147 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

This  man's  metallic;  at  a  suddeu  blow 
His  soul  rings  hurd.    I  cannot  lay  my  palm. 
Trembling  with  life,  upon  that  jointed  brass. 
I  shudder  at  the  cold  unanswering  touch ; 
But  jf  it  press  me  in  response,  I'm  bruised. 

The  next  morning,  when  the  Debarrys,  including  the 
rector,  who  had  ridden  over  to  the  Manor  early,  were  still 
seated  at  breakfast,  Christian  came  in  with  a  letter,  saying 
that  it  had  been  brought  by  a  man  employed  at  the  chapel 
in  Malthouse  Yard,  who  had  been  ordered  bv  the  minister 
to  use  all  speed  and  care  in  the  delivery. 

The  letter  was  addressed  to  Sir  Maximus. 

'■  Stay,  Christian,  it  may  possibly  refer  to  the  lost  pocket- 
book,"  said  Philip  Debarry,  who  was  beginning  to  feel 
rather  sorry  for  his  factotum,  as  a  reaction  from  previous 
suspicions  and  indignation. 

Sir  Maximus  opened  the  letter  and  felt  for  his  glasses, 
but  then  said,  "Here,  you  read  it,  Phil:  the  man  writes  a 
hand  like  small  print." 

Philip  cast  his  eyes  over  it,  and  then  read  aloud  in  a  tone 
of  satisfaction:  — 

Sir, — I  send  this  letter  to  apprise  you  that  I  have  now  in  my  pos- 
session certain  articles,  ■which,  last  evening,  at  about  half -past  seven 
o'clock,  were  found  Ijiug  on  the  grass  at  the  western  extremity  of 
your  park.  The  articles  are  —  1°,  a  well-tilled  pocket-book,  of  brown 
leather,  fastened  with  a  black  ribbon  and  with  a  seal  of  red  wax;  2^,  a 
small  note-book,  covered  with  gilded  vellum,  whereof  the  clasp  was 
burst,  and  from  out  whereof  had  partly  escaped  a  small  gold  chain, 
with  seals  and  a  locket  attached,  the  locket  bearing  on  the  back  a 
device,  and  round  the  face  a  female  name. 

Wherefore  I  request  that  j"ou  will  fm-ther  my  effort  to  place  these 
articles  in  the  right  hands,  by  ascertaining  whether  any  person  within 
your  walls  claims  them  as  his  property,  and  by  sending  that  person  to 
me  (if  such  be  found) ;  for  I  will  on  no  account  let  them  pass  from  my 
care  save  into  that  of  one  who,  declaring  himself  to  be  the  owner,  can 
state  to  me  what  is  the  impression  on  the  seal,  and  what  the  device 
and  name  upon  the  locket. 
I  am,  sir, 

Yoxurs  to  command  in  all  right  dealing, 

Rttfus  Lyon. 

Malthouse  Yard,  Oct.  3,  1832. 

''Well  done,  old  Lyon,"  said  the  rector;  ''  T  didn't  think 
that  any- composition  of  his  would  ever  give  me  so  much 
pleasure." 

"What  an  old  fox  it  is! "' said  Sir  Maximtts.      "W^hy 


148  FELIX   HOLT, 

couldn't  lie  send  the  things  to  me  at  once  along  with  the 
letter?" 

*'No,  no,  Max;  he  uses  a  justifiable  caution,"  said 
the  rector,  a  refined  and  rather  severe  likeness  of  his 
brother,  with  a  ring  of  fearlessness  and  decision  in  his 
voice  which  startled  all  flaccid  men  and  unruly  boys, 
"  What  are  you  going  to  do,  Phil?"  he  added,  seeing  his 
nephew  rise. 

'*  To  write,  of  course.  Those  other  matters  are  yours,  I 
suppose?"  said  Mr.  Debarry,  looking  at  Christian. 

•'Yes,  sir." 

"I  shall  send  you  with  a  letter  to  the  preacher.  You 
can  describe  your  own  property.  And  the  seal,  uncle — was 
it  your  coat-of-arms?" 

"No,  it  was  this  head  of  Achilles.  Here,  I  can  take  it 
off  the  ring,  and  you  can  carry  it,  Christian.  But  don't 
lose  that,  for  I've  had  it  ever  since  eighteen  hundred.  I 
should  like  to  send  my  compliments  with  it,"  the  rector 
went  on,  looking  at  his  brother,  ''and  beg  that  since  he 
has  so  much  wise  caution  at  command,  he  would  exercise  a 
little  in  more  public  matters,  instead  of  making  himself  a 
firebrand  in  my  parish,  and  teaching  hucksters  and  tape- 
weavers  that  it's  their  business  to  dictate  to  statesmen." 

"How  did  Dissenters,  and  Methodists,  and  Quakers, 
and  people  of  that  sort  first  come  up,  uncle?"  said  Miss 
Selina,  a  radiant  girl  of  twenty,  who  had  given  much  time 
to  the  harp. 

"Dear  me,  Selina,"  said  her  elder  sister,  Harriet,  whose 
forte  was  general  knowledge,  "don't  you  remember 
'Woodstock'?    They  were  in  Cromwell's  time." 

"Oh!  Holdenough,  and  those  people?  Yes;  but  they 
preached  in  the  churches;  they  had  no  chapels.  Tell  me, 
uncle  Grus;  I  like  to  be  wise,"  said  Selina,  looking  up  at 
the  face  which  was  smiling  down  on  her  with  a  sort  of 
severe  benignity.     "Phil  says  I'm  an  ignorant  puss." 

"The  seeds  of  Nonconformity  were  sown  at  the  Kefor- 
mation,  my  dear,  when  some  obstinate  men  made  scruples 
about  surplices  and  the  place  of  the  communion  table,  and 
other  trifles  of  that  sort.  But  the  Quakers  came  up  about 
Cromwell's  time,  and  the  Methodists  only  in  the  last  cent- 
ury. The  first  Methodists  were  regular  clergymen,  the 
more's  the  pity." 

"But  all  those  wrong  things — why  didn't  government 
put  them  down?" 


THE   RADICAL,  149 

''Ah,  to  be  sure,"  fell  in  Sir  Maximus,  in  a  cordial  tone 
of  corroboration. 

''Because  error  is  often  strong,  and  government  is  often 
weak,  my  dear.  Well,  Phil,  have  you  finished  your 
letter?" 

"Yes,  I  will  read  it  to  you,"  said  Philip,  turning  and 
leaning  over  the  back  of  his  chair  with  the  letter  in  his 
hand. 

There  is  a  portrait  of  Mr.  Philip  Debarry  still  to  be  seen 
at  Treby  Manor,  and  a  very  fine  bust  of  him  at  Eome, 
where  he  died  fifteen  years  later,  a  convert  to  Catholicism. 
His  face  would  have  been  plain  but  for  the  exquisite  set- 
ting of  his  hazel  eyes,  which  fascinated  even  the  dogs  of 
the  household.  The  other  features,  though  slight  and 
irregular,  were  redeemed  from  triviality  by  the  stamp  of 
gravity  and  intellectual  preoccupation  in  his  face  and  bear- 
ing. As  he  read  aloud,  his  voice  was  what  his  uncle's 
might  have  been  if  it  had  been  modulated  by  delicate 
health  and  a  visitation  of  self-doubt. 

Sir, —  In  reply  to  the  letter  with  which  you  have  favored  me  this 
morning,  I  beg  to  state  that  the  articles  you  describe  were  lost  from 
the  pocket  of  my  servant,  who  is  the  bearer  of  this  letter  to  you,  and 
is  the  claimant  of  tlie  vellum  note-book  and  the  gold  chain.  The 
large  leathern  pocket  book  is  my  own  property,  and  the  impression 
on  the  wax,  a  helmeted  head  of  Achilles,  was  made  by  my  uncle,  the 
Reverend  Augustus  Debarry,  who  allows  me  to  forward  this  seal  to 
you  in  proof  that  I  am  not  making  a  mistaken  claim. 

I  feel  myself  under  deep  obligation  to  you,  sir,  for  the  care  and 
trouble  you  have  taken  in  order  to  restore  to  its  right  owner  a  piece  of 
property  which  happens  to  be  of  particular  importance  to  me.  And  I 
shall  consider  mj^self  doubly  fortunate  if  at  any  time  you  can  point 
out  to  me  some  method  by  which  I  may  procure  you  as  lively  a  satis- 
faction as  I  am  now  feeling,  in  that  full  and  speedy  relief  from  anxiety 
which  I  owe  to  your  considerate  conduct. 

I  remain,  sir,  your  obliged  and  faithful  servant, 

Philip  Debarry. 

"You  know  best,  Phil,  of  course/'  said  Sir  Maximus, 
pushing  his  plate  from  him,  by  way  of  interjection. 
"  But  it  seems  to  me  you  exaggerate  preposterously  every 
little  service  a  man  happens  to  do  for  you.  Wliy  should 
you  make  a  general  offer  of  that  sort?  How  do  you  know 
what  he  will  be  asking  you  to  do?  Stuff  and  nonsense! 
Tell  Willis  to  send  him  a  few  head  of  game.  You  should 
think  twice  before  you  give  a  blank  check  of  that  sort  to 
one  of  these  quibbling,  meddlesome  Radicals." 

"You  are  afraid  of  my  committing  myself  to  'the 
bottomless  perjury  of  an  et  cetera/  "  said  Philip,  smiling. 


150  ^i-ELIX   HOLT, 

as  he  turned  to  fold  his  letter.  ''  But  I  think  I  am  not 
doing  any  mischief;  at  all  events  I  could  not  be  content 
to  sa}^  less.  And  I  have  a  notion  that  he  would  regard  a 
present  of  game  just  now  as  an  insult.  I  should,  in  his 
place." 

"'Yes,  yes,  you;  but  you  don^t  make  yourself  a  measure 
of  Dissenting  preachers,  I  hope,"  said  Sir  Maximus,  rather 
wrathfull}^     '^  What  do  you  say,  Gus?" 

'•'  Phil  is  right,"  said  the  rector,  in  an  absolute  tone. 
"  I  would  not  deal  with  a  Dissenter,  or  put  profits  into  the 
pocket  of  a  Eadical  which  I  might  put  into  the  pocket  of 
a  good  Churchman  and  a  quiet  subject.  But  if  the  greatest 
scoundrel  in  the  world  made  way  for  me,  or  picked  my  hat 
up,  I  would  thank  him.     So  would  you,  Max." 

''Pooh!  I  didn't  mean  that  one  shouldn't  behave  like 
a  gentleman,"  said  Sir  Maximus,  in  some  vexation.  He 
had  great  pride  in  his  son's  superiority  even  to  himself; 
but  he  did  not  enjoy  having  his  own  opinion  argued  down 
as  it  always  was,  and  did  not  quite  trust  the  dim  vision 
opened  by  Phil's  new  words  and  new  notions.  He  could 
only  submit  in  silence  while  the  letter  was  delivered  to 
Christian,  with  the  order  to  start  for  Malthouse  Yard 
immediately. 

Meanwhile,  in  that  somewhat  dim  locality  the  possible 
claimant  of  the  note-book  and  the  chain  wa  sthought  of  and 
expected  with  palpitating  agitation.  Mr.  Lyon  was  seated 
in  his  study,  looking  haggard  and  already  aged  from  a 
sleepless  night.  He  was  so  afraid  lest  his  emotion  should 
deprive  him  of  the  presence  of  mind  necessary  to  the  due 
attention  to  particulars  in  the  coming  interview,  that  he 
continued  to  occupy  his  sight  and  touch  with  the  objects 
which  had  stirred  the  depths,  not  only  of  memory,  but  of 
dread.  Once  again  he  unlocked  a  small  box  which  stood 
beside  his  desk,  and  took  from  it  a  little  oval  locket,  and 
compared  this  with  one  which  hung  with  the  seals  on  the 
stray  gold  chain.  There  was  the  same  device  in  enamel  on 
the  back  of  both:  clasped  hands  surrounded  with  blue 
flowers.  Both  had  round  the  face  a  name  in  gold  italics 
on  a  blue  ground:  the  name  on  the  locket  taken  from  the 
drawer  was  Maurice;  the  name  on  the  locket  which  hung 
with  the  seals  was  Annette,  and  within  the  circle  of  this 
name  there  was  a  lover's  knot  of  light-brown  hair,  which 
matched  a  curl  that  lay  in  the  box.  The  hair  in  the  locket 
which  bore  the  name  of  Maurice  was  of  a  very  dark  brown, 
and  before  returning  it  to  the  drawer  Mr.  Lyon  noted  the 


THE   RADICAL.  151 

color  and  quality  of  this  hair  more  carefully  than  ever. 
Then  he  recurred  to  the  note-book:  undoubtedly  there  had 
been  something,  probably  a  third  name,  beyond  the  names 
Maurice  Christian,,  which  had  themselves  been  rubbed  and 
slightly  smeared  as  if  by  accident;  and  from  the  very  first 
examination  in  the  vestry,  Mr.  Lyon  could  not  prevent 
'liimself  from  transferring  tlie  mental  image  of  the  third 
name  in  faint  lines  to  the  rubbed  leather.  The  leaves  of 
the  note-book  seemed  to  have  been  recently  inserted;  they 
were  of  fresh  white  paper,  and  only  bore  some  abbrevia- 
tions in  pencil  with  a  notation  of  small  sums.  N'othing 
could  be  gathered  from  the  comparison  of  the  Avriting  in 
the  book  with  that  of  the  yellow  letters  which  lay  in  the 
box:  the  smeared  name  had  been  carefully  printed,  and  so 
bore  no  resemblance  to  the  signature  of  those  letters;  and 
the  pencil  abbreviations  and  figures  had  been  made  too 
hurriedly  to  bear  any  decisive  witness.  "  I  will  ask  him  to 
write — to  write  a  description  of  the  locket,"  had  been  one 
of  Mr.  Lyon's  thoughts;  but  he  faltered  in  that  intention. 
His  power  of  fulfilling  it  must  depend  on  what  he  saw  in 
this  visitor,  of  whose  coming  he  had  a  horrible  dread,  at 
the  very  time  he  was  writing  to  demand  it.  In  that  demand 
he  was  obeying  the  voice  of  his  rigid  conscience,  which  had 
never  left  him  perfectly  at  rest  under  his  one  act  of  decep- 
tion— the  concealment  from  Esther  that  he  was  not  her 
natural  father,  the  assertion  of  a  false  claim  upon  her. 
"  Let  my  path  be  henceforth  simple,"  he  had  said  to  him- 
self in  the  anguish  of  that  night;  "  let  me  seek  to  know 
Avhat  is,  and  if  possible  to  declare  it."  If  he  was  really 
going  to  find  himself  face  to  face  with  the  man  Avho  had 
been  Annette's  husband,  and  who  was  Esther's  father — 
if  that  wandering  of  his  from  the  light  had  brought  the 
punishment  of  a  blind  sacrilege  as  the  issue  of  a  conscious 
transgression, — he  prayed  that  he  might  be  able  to  accept 
all  consequences  of  pain  to  himself.  But  he  saw  other 
possibilities  concerning  the  claimant  of  the  book  and  chain. 
His  ignorance  and  suspicions  as  to  the  history  and  charac- 
ter of  Annette's  husband  made  it  credible  that  he  had  laid 
a  plan  for  convincing  her  of  his  death  as  a  means  of  free- 
ing himself  from  a  burdensome  tie;  but  it  seemed  equally 
probable  thsit  he  was  really  dead,  and  that  these  articles  of 
property  had  been  a  bequest,  or  a  payment,  or  even  a  sale, 
to  their  present  owner.  Indeed,  in  all  these  years  there 
was  no  knowing  into  how  many  hands  such  pretty  trifles 
might  have  passed.      And  the  claimant  might,  after  all. 


152  FELIX   HOLT, 

have  no  connection  with  the  Debarrys;  he  might  not  come 
on  this  day  or  the  next.  There  might  be  more  time  left 
for  reflection  and  prayer. 

All  these  possibilities,  whicli  wonld  remove  the  pressing 
need  for  difficult  action,  Mr.  Lyon  represented  to  himself, 
but  he  had  no  effective  belief  in  them;  his  belief  went  with 
his  strongest  feeling,  and  in  these  moments  his  strongest' 
feeling  was  dead.  He  trembled  nnler  the  Aveight  that 
seemed  already  added  to  his  own  sin;  he  felt  himself, 
already  confronted  by  Annette's  husband  and  Esther's 
father.  Perhaps  the  father  was  a  gentleman  on  a  visit  to 
the  Debarrys.  There  was  no  hindering  the  pang  with 
which  the  old  man  said  to  himself — 

"  The  child  will  not  be  sorry  to  leave  this  poor  home, 
and  I  shall  be  guilty  in  her  sight." 

He  was  walking  about  among  the  rows  of  books  when 
there  came  a  loud  rap  at  the  outer  door.  The  rap  shook 
him  so  that  he  sank  into  his  chair,  feeling  almost  j)ower- 
less.     Lyddy  presented  herself. 

"  Here's  ever  such  a  fine  man  from  the  Manor  wants  to 
see  you,  sir.  Dear  heart,  dear  heart!  shall  I  tell  him  you're 
too  bad  to  see  him?" 

'SShow  him  up,"  said  Mr.  Lyon,  making  an  effort  to 
rally.  When  Christian  appeared,  the  minister  half  rose, 
leaning  on  an  arm  of  his  chair,  and  said,  "  Be  seated,  sir," 
seeing  nothing  but  that  a  tall  man  was  entering. 

''I've  brought  you  a  letter  from  Mr.  Debarry,"  said 
Christian,  in  an  off-hand  manner.  This  rusty  little  man, 
in  his  dismal  chamber,  seemed  to  the  Ulysses  of  the  stew- 
ard's room  a  pitiable  sort  of  human  curiosity,  to  whom  a 
man  of  the  world  would  speak  rather  loudly,  in  accommo- 
dation to  an  eccentricity  Avhich  was  likely  to  be  accom- 
panied with  deafness.  One  cannot  be  eminent  in  every- 
thing; and  if  Mr.  Christian  had  dispersed  his  faculties  in 
study  that  would  have  enabled  him  to  share  unconven- 
tional jDoints  of  view,  he  might  have  worn  a  mistaken  kind 
of  boot,  and  been  less  competent  to  win  at  ecarte,  or  at 
betting,  or  in  any  other  contest  suitable  to  a  person  of 
figure. 

As  he  seated  himself,  Mr.  Lyon  opened  the  letter, 
and  held  it  close  to  his  eyes,  so  that  his  face  was  hidden. 
But  at  the  word ''servant"  he  could  not  avoid  starting, 
and  looking  off  the  letter  toward  the  bearer.  Christian, 
knowing  what  was  in  the  letter,  conjectured  that  the  old 
man  was  amazed  to  learn  that  so  distinguished-looking  a 


THE    RADICAL,  153 

personage  was  a  servant;  he  leaned  forward  with  his 
elbows  on  his  knees,  balanced  his  cane  on  his  fingers, 
and  began  a  whispering  whistle.  The  minister  checked 
himself,  finished  the  reading  of  the  letter,  and  then  slowly 
and  nervously  put  on  his  spectacles  to  survey  this  man, 
between  whose  fate  and  his  own  there  might  be  a  terrible 
collision.  The  word  "servant"  had  been  a  fresh  caution 
to  him.  He  must  do  nothing  rashly.  Esther's  lot  was 
deeply  concerned. 

"Here  is  the  seal  mentioned  in  the  letter,"  said 
Christian. 

Mr,  Lyon  drew  the  pocket-book  from  his  desk,  and  after 
comparing  the  seal  with  the  impression,  said,  "It  is  right, 
sir:  I  deliver  the  pocket-book  to  you." 

He  held  it  out  with  the  seal,  and  Christian  rose  to  take 
them,  saying,  carelessly,  "  The  other  things — the  chain 
and  the  little  book — are  mine.^' 

"Your  name  then  is " 

"Maurice  Christian." 

A  spasm  shot  through  Mr.  Lyon.  It  had  seemed  possi. 
ble  that  he  might  hear  another  name,  and  be  freed  from 
the  worse  half  of  his  anxiety.  His  next  words  were  not 
wisely  chosen,  but  escaped  him  impulsively. 

"And  you  have  no  other  name?" 

"What  do  you  mean?"  said  Christian,  sharply. 

"  Be  so  good  as  to  reseat  yourself. " 

Christian  did  not  comply.  "I'm  rather  in  a  hurry,  sir," 
he  said,  recovering  his  coolness.  "  If  it  suits  you  to  restore 
to  me  those  small  articles  of  mine,  I  shall  be  glad;  but  I 
would  rather  leave  them  behind  than  be  detained."  He 
had  reflected  that  the  minister  was  simply  a  punctilious 
old  bore.  The  question  meant  nothing  else.  But  Mr. 
Lyon  had  wrought  himself  up  to  the  task  of  finding  out, 
then  and  there,  if  possible,  whether  or  not  this  were 
Annette's  husband.  How  could  he  lay  himself  and  his 
sin  before  God  if  he  willfully  declined  to  learn  the  truth? 

"Nay,  sir,  I  will  not  detain  you  unreasonably,"  he  said, 
in  a  firmer  tone  than  before.  "How  long  have  these  arti- 
cles been  your  property?" 

"Oh,  for  more  than  twenty  years,"  said  Christian,  care- 
lessly. 

He  was  not  altogether  easy  under  the  minister's  persist- 
ence, but  for  that  very  reason  he  showed  no  more  impa- 
tience. 

"You  have  been  in  France  and  in  Germany:^" 


154  FELIX   HOLT, 


3 


"I  have  been  in  most  countries  on  the  Continent/' 

"Be  so  good  as  to  write  me  your  name,"  said  Mr.  Lyon, 
dipping  a  pen  in  the  ink,  and  holding  it  out  with  a  piece 
of  paper. 

Christian  was  much  surprised,  but  not  now  greatly 
alarmed.  In  his  rapid  conjectures  as  to  the  explanation  of 
the  minister's  curiosity,  he  had  alighted  on  one  which 
might  carry  advantage  rather  than  inconvenience.  But  he 
was  not  going  to  commit  himself. 

"  Before  I  oblige  you  there,  sir,"  he  said,  laying  down 
the  pen,  and  looking  straight  at  Mr.  Lyon,  "  I  must  know 
exactly  the  reasons  you  have  for  putting  these  questions 
to  me.  You  are  a  stranger  to  me — an  excellent  person,  I 
dare  say — but  I  have  no  concern  about  you  farther  than  to 
get  from  you  those  small  articles.  Do  you  still  doubt  that 
they  are  mine?  You  wished,  I  think,  that  I  should  tell 
you  what  the  locket  is  like.  It  has  a  pair  of  hands  and 
blue  flowers  on  one  side  and  the  name  Annette  round  the 
hair  on  the  other  side.  That  is  all  I  have  to  say.  If  you 
wish  for  anything  more  from  me,  you  will  be  good  enough 
to  tell  me  why  you  wish  it.  Now  then,  sir,  what  is  your 
concern  with  me?" 

The  cool  stare,  the  hard  challenging  voice,  with  which 
these  words  were  uttered,  made  them  fall  like  the  beating 
cutting  chill  of  heavy  hail  on  Mr.  Lyon.  He  sank  back 
in  his  chair  in  utter  irresolution  and  helplessness.  How 
was  it  possible  to  lay  bare  the  sad  and  sacred  past  in 
answer  td  such  a  call  as  this?  The  dread  with  which  he 
had  thought  of  this  man's  coming,  the  strongly-confirmed 
suspicion  that  he  was  really  Annette's  husband,  intensified 
the  antipathy  created  by  his  gestures  and  glances.  The 
sensitive  little  minister  knew  instinctively  that  words 
which  would  cost  him  efforts  as  painful  as  the  obedient 
footsteps  of  a  Avounded  bleeding  hound  that  wills  a  fore- 
seen throe,  would  fall  on  this  man  as  the  pressure  of 
tender  fingers  falls  on  a  brazen  glove.  And  Esther — if  this 
man  was  her  father — every  additional  word  might  help  to 
bring  down  irrevocable,  perhaps  cruel,  consequences  on 
her.  A  thick  mist  seemed  to  have  fallen  where  Mr.  Lyon 
was  looking  for  the  track  of  duty:  the  difficult  question, 
how  far  he  was  to  care  for  consequences  in  seeking  and 
avowing  the  truth,  seemed  anew  obscured.  All  these 
things,  like  the  vision  of  a  coming  calamity,  were  com- 
pressed into  a  moment  of  consciousness,     Nothing  could 


THE   KADICAL.  155 

be  done  to-day;  everything  must  be  deferred.  He  answered 
Christian  in  a  low  apologetic  tone. 

"It  is  true,  sir;  you  have  told  me  all  lean  demand. 
I  have  no  sufficient  reason  for  detaining  your  property 
further." 

He  handed  the  note-book  and  chain  to  Christian,  who 
had  been  observing  him  narrowly,  and  now  said,  in  a  tone 
of  indifference,  as  he  pocketed  the  articles-  — 

''Very  good,  sir.     I  wish  you  a  good  ro.orning." 

''Good  morning," said  Mr.  Lyon,  feeling,  while  the  door 
closed  behind  his  guest,  that  mixture  of  uneasiness  and 
relief  which  all  procrastination  of  difficulty  produces  in 
minds  capable  o£  strong  forecast.  The  work  was  still 
to  be  done.  He  had  still  before  him  the  task  of  learning 
everytliing  that  could  be  learned  about  this  man^s  relation 
to  himself  and  Esther. 

Christian,  as  he  made  his  way  back  along  Malthouse 
Lane,  was  thinking,  "This  old  fellow  has  got  some  secret 
in  his  head.  It't  not  likely  he  can  knoAV  anything  about 
me:  it  must  be  about  Bycliffe.  But  Bycliffe  was  a  gentle- 
man: how  should  he  ever  have  had  anything  to  do  with 
such  a  seedy  old  ranter  as  that." 


CHAPTER  XV. 

And  doubt  shall  be  as  lead  upon  the  feet 
Of  thy  most  anxious  will. 

Mr.  Lyon  was  careful  to  look  in  at  Felix  as  soon  as 
possible  after  Christian's  departure,  to  tell  him  that  his 
trust  was  discharged.  During  the  rest  of  the  day  he  was 
somewhat  relieved  from  agitating  reflections  by  the  neces- 
sity of  attending  to  his  ministerial  duties,  the  rebuke  of 
rebellious  singers  being  one  of  them;  and  on  his  return 
from  the  Monday  evening  prayer-meeting  he  was  so  over- 
come with  weariness  that  ho  went  to  bed  without  taking 
note  of  any  objects  in  his  study.  But  when  lie  rose  the 
next  morning,  his  mind,  once  more  eagerly  active,  was 
arrested  by  Philip  Debarry's  letter,  which  still  lay  open 
on  his  desk,  and  was  arrested  by  precisely  that  portion 
which  had  been  unheeded  the  day  before:  —  "I shall  con- 
sider myself  doubly  fortunate  if  at  any  time  you,  can  point 
out  to  me  some  method  by  ivhich  I  may  procure  you  as 


156  FELIX  HOLT, 

lively  a  satisfaction  as  I  am  now  feeling,  in  that  full  and 
S2}eedy  relief  from  anxiety  which  I  oive  to  your  considerate 
conduct." 

To  understand  how  these  words  could  carry  the  sugges- 
tion the}^  actually  had  for  the  minister  in  a  crisis  of 
peculiar  personal  anxiety  and  struggle,  we  must  bear  in 
mind  that  for  many  years  he  had  walked  through  life  Avith 
the  sense  of  having  for  a  space  been  unfaithful  to  what 
he  esteemed  the  highest  trust  ever  committed  to  man  — 
the  ministerial  vocation.  In  a  mind  of  any  nobleness,  a 
lapse  into  transgression  against  an  object  still  regarded 
as  supreme,  issues  in  a  new  and  purer  devotedness,  chas- 
tised by  humility  and  watched  over  by  a  passionate  regret. 
So  it  was  witli  that  ardent  spirit  which  animated  the  little 
body  of  Rufus  Lyon.  Once  in  his  life  he  had  been 
blinded,  deafened,  hurried  along  by  rebellious  impulse; 
he  had  gone  astray  after  his  own  desires,  and  had  let  the 
fire  die  out  on  the  altar;  and  as  the  true  joenitent,  hating 
his  self-besotted  error,  asks  from  all  coming  life  duty 
instead  of  joy,  and  service  instead  of  ease,  so  Rufus  was 
perpetually  on  the  watch  lest  he  should  ever  again  joost- 
pone  to  some  private  affection  a  great  public  ojjportunity 
which  to  him  was  equivalent  to  a  command. 

Now  here  was  an  oppox'tunity  brought  by  a  combination 
of  that  unexpected  incalculable  kind  which  might  be 
regarded  as  the  Divine  emphasis  invoking  especial  atten- 
tion to  trivial  events  —  an  opportunity  of  securing  what 
Rufus  Lyon  had  often  wished  for  as  a  means  of  honoring 
truth,  and  exhibiting  error  in  the  character  of  a  stammer- 
ing, halting,  short-breathed  usurper  of  office  and  dignity. 
What  was  more  exasperating  to  a  zealous  preacher,  with 
whom  copious  speech  was  not  a  difficulty  but  a  relief  —  who 
never  lacked  argument,  but  only  combatants  and  listeners — 
than  to  reflect  that  there  were  thousands  on  thousands 
of  pulpits  in  this  kingdom,  supplied  with  handsome 
sounding-boards,  and  occupying  an  advantageous  position 
in  buildings  far  larger  than  the  chapel  in  Malthouse  Yard — 
buildings  sure  to  be  places  of  resort,  even  as  the  market;., 
were,  if  onlv  from  habit  and  interest;  and  that  these 
pulpits  were  filled,  or  rather  made  vacuous,  by  men  whose 
privileged  education  in  the  ancient  centres  of  instruction 
issued  in  twenty  minutes'  formal  reading  of  tepid  exhorta- 
tion or  probably  infirm  deductions  from  premises  based  on 
rotten  scaffolding?  And  it  is  in  the  nature  of  exasperation 
gradually  to  concentrate  itself.     The  sincere  antipathy  of 


THE   RADICAL.  167 

a  dog  toward  cats  in  general,  necessarily  takes  the  form  of 
indignant  barking  at  the  neighbor's  black  cat  which  makes 
daily  trespass;  the  bark  at  imagined  cats,  though  a  fre- 
quent exercise  of  the  canine  mind,  is  yet  comparatively 
feeble.  Mr.  Lyon's  sarcasm  was  not  without  an  edge 
when  he  dilated  in  general  on  an  elaborate  education  for 
teachers  which  issued  in  the  minimum  of  teaching,  but  it 
found  a  whetstone  in  the  particular  example  of  that  bad 
system  known  as  the  rector  of  Treby  Magna.  There  was 
nothing  positive  to  be  said  against  the  Rev.  Augustus 
Debarry;  his  life  could  not  be  pronounced  blameworthy 
except  for  its  negatives.  And  the  good  Rufus  was  too 
pure-minded  not  to  be  glad  of  that.  He  had  no  delight  in 
vice  as  discrediting  wicked  opponents;  he  shrank  from 
dwelling  on  the  images  of  cruelty  or  of  grossness,  and  his 
indignation  was  habitually  inspired  only  by  those  moral 
and  intellectual  mistakes  which  darken  the  soul  but  do  not 
injure  or  degrade  the  temple  of  the  body.  If  the  rector 
had  been  a  less  respectable  man,  Rufus  would  have  more 
reluctantly  made  him  an  object  of  antagonism;  but  as  an 
incarnation  of  soul-destroying  error,  dissociated  from  those 
baser  sins  which  have  no  good  repute  even  with  the 
worldly,  it  would  be  an  argumentative  luxury  to  get  into 
close  quarters  with  liim,  and  fight  with  a  dialectic  short- 
sword  in  the  eyes  of  the  Treby  world  (sending  also  a  writ- 
ten account  thereof  to  the  chief  organs  of  Dissenting 
opinion).  Vice  was  essentially  stupid — a  deaf  and  eyeless 
monster,  insusceptible  to  demonstration:  the  Spirit  might 
work  on  it  by  unseen  ways,  and  the  unstudied  sallies  of 
sermons  were  often  as  the  arrows  which  pierced  and 
awakened  the  brutified  conscience;  but  illuminated 
thought,  finely  dividing  speech,  were  the  choicer  weapons 
of  the  Divine  armory,  which  whoso  could  wield  must  be 
careful  not  to  leave  idle. 

Here,  then,  was  the  longed-for  opportunity.  Here  was 
an  engagement — an  expression  of  a  strong  wish — on  the 
part  of  Philip  Debarry,  if  it  were  in  his  power,  to  procure 
a  satisfaction  to  Rufus  Lyon.  How  had  that  man  of  God 
and  exemplary  Independent  minister,  Mr.  Ainsworth,  of 
persecuted  sanctity,  conducted  himself  when  a  similar 
occasion  had  befallen  him  at  Amsterdam?  He  had  thought 
of  nothing  but  the  glory  of  the  highest  cause,  and  had 
converted  the  offer  of  recompense  into  a  public  debate  with 
a  Jew  on  tlie  chief  mysteries  of  the  faith.  Here  was  a 
model:   the   case  was  nothing  short  of  a  heavenly  indi- 


158  i'j;lix  iioLT, 

cation,  and  he,  Enfus  Lyon,  would  seize  the  occasion  to 
demand  a  public  debate  with  the  rector  on  the  constitution 
of  tlie  true  Church. 

What  if  he  were  inwardly  torn  by  doubt  and  anxiety 
concerning  his  own  private  relations  and  the  facts  of  his 
past  life?  That  danger  of  absorption  within  the  narrow 
bounds  of  self  only  urged  him  the  more  toward  action 
which  had  a  wider  bearing,  and  might  tell  on  the  welfare 
of  England  at  large.  It  was  decided.  Before  the  minis- 
ter went  down  to  breakfast  that  morning  he  had  written 
the  following  letter  to  Mr.  Philip  Debarry: — 

Sir, — ffeferring  to  your  letter  of  yesterday,  I  find  the  following 
words:  "  I  shall  consider  myself  doubly  fortunate  if  at  any  time  you 
can  point  out  to  me  some  metliod  by  which  I  may  procure  you  as 
lively  satisfaction  as  I  am  now  feeling,  in  that  full  and  speedy  relief 
from  anxiety  which  I  owe  to  your  considerate  conduct." 

I  am  not  unaware,  sir,  tnat,  in  the  usage  of  the  world,  there  are 
words  of  courtesy  (so  called)  which  are  understood,  by  those  amongst 
whom  they  are  current,  to  have  no  precise  meaning,  and  to  constitute 
no  bond  of  obligation.  I  will  not  now  insist  that  this  is  an  abuse  of 
language,  wherein  our  fallible  nature  requires  the  strictest  safeguards 
against  laxity  and  misapplication,  for  I  do  not  apprehend  that  in 
writing  the  words  I  have  above  quoted,  you  were  open  to  the  reproach 
of  using  phrases  which,  wliile  seeming  to  carry  a  specific  meaning, 
were  really  no  more  than  what  is  callecl  a  polite  form.  I  believe,  sir, 
that  you  used  these  words  advisedly,  sincerely,  and  Avith  an  honorable 
intention  of  acting  on  them  as  a  pledge,  should  such  action  be 
demanded.  No  other  supposition  on  my  jjart  would  correspond  to 
the  character  you  bear  as  a  young  man  who  aspires  (albeit  mistakenly) 
to  engraft  the  finest  fruits  of  public  virtue  on  a  creed  and  institutions, 
whereof  the  sap  is  composed  rather  of  human  self-seeking  than  of 
everlasting  truth. 

Wherefore  I  act  on  this  my  belief  in  the  integrity  of  your  written 
word;  I  beg  you  to  procure  for  me  (as  it  is  doubtless  in  your  power) 
that  I  may  be  allowed  a  public  discussion  with  your  near  relative,  the 
rector  of  this  parish,  the  Reverend  Augustus  Debarry,  to  be  held  in 
the  large  room  of  the  Free  School,  or  in  the  Assembly  Room,  of  the 
Marquis  of  Granb^^  these  being  the  largest  covered  spaces  at  our  com- 
mand. For  I  presume  he  would  neitlier  allow  me  to  speak  within 
his  church,  nor  would  consent  himself  to  speak  within  my  chapel;  and 
the  prol)able  inclemency  of  the  approaching  .season  forbids  an  assured 
expectation  that  yve  could  discourse  in  the" open  air.  The  subjects  I 
desire  to  di.scuss  are,— first,  the  Constilution  of  the  true  Church;  and, 
secondly  the  bearing  thereupon  of  the  English  Reformation.  Con- 
fidently expecting  that  you  will  comply  with  this  request  which  is 
the  sequence  of  yovu-  expressed  desire,  I  remain,  sir,  yours,  with  the 
respect  offered  to  a  sincere  withstander. 

RuFus  Lyon.   • 
Malthouse  Yard. 

After  writing  this  letter,  the  good  Rufus  felt  that  seren- 
ity and   elevation   of   mind   which    is   infallibly   brought 


THE   EADICAL.  159 

by  a  preoccupation  with  the  wider  relations  of  things. 
Ah'eady  he  was  beginning  to  sketch  the  course  his  argu- 
ment might  most  judiciously  take  in  the  coming  debate; 
his  thoughts  were  running  into  sentences^  and  marking  ofL 
careful  exceptions  in  parentheses;  and  he  had  come  down 
and  seated  himself  at  the  breakfast-table  quite  automatic- 
ally,  without  expectation  of  toast  or  coffee,  when  Esther's 
voice  and  touch  recalled  to  him  an  inward  debate  of 
another  kind,  in  which  he  felt  himself  much  weaker. 
Again  there  arose  before  him  the  image  of  that  cool,  hard- 
eyed,  worldly  man,  who  might  be  this  dear  child's  father, 
and  one  against  whose  rights  he  had  himself  grieroiisly 
offended.  Always  as  the  image  recurred  to  him  Mr, 
Lyon's  heart  sent  forth  a  prayer  for  guidance,  but  no  defi- 
nite guidance  had  yet  made  itself  visible  for  him.  It 
could  not  be  guidance  —  it  was  a  temptation  —  that  said, 
''Let  the  matter  rest:  seek  to  know  no  more;  know  only 
what  is  thrust  upon  you,"  The  remembrance  that  in  his 
time  of  wandering  he  had  willfully  remained  in  ignorance 
of  facts  which  he  might  have  inquired  after,  deepened  the 
impression  that  it  Avas  now  an  imperative  duty  to  seek  the 
fullest  attainable  knowledge.  And  the  inquiry  might  pos- 
sibly issue  in  a  blessed  repose,  by  putting  a  negative  on 
all  his  suspicions.  But  the  more  vividly  all  the  circum- 
stances became  present  to  him,  the  more  unfit  he  felt  him- 
self to  set  about  any  investigation  concerning  this  man 
who  called  himself  Maurice  Christian.  He  could  seek  no 
confidant  or  helper  among  ''  the  brethren  ";  he  was  obljged 
to  admit  to  himself  that  the  members  of  his  church,  with 
whom  he  hoped  to  go  to  heaven,  were  not  easy  to  converse 
with  on  earth  touching  the  deeper  secrets  of  his  experi- 
ence, and  were  still  less  able  to  advise  him  as  to  the  wisest 
procedure  in  a  case  of  high  delicacy,  with  a  worldling  who 
had  a  carefully-trimmed  whisker  and  a  fashionable  cos- 
tume. For  the  first  time  in  his  life  it  occurred  to  the 
minister  that  he  sliould  bo  glad  of  an  adviser  who  had 
more  worldly  than  spiritual  experience,  and  that  it  might 
not  be  inconsistent  with  his  ])rinciples  to  seek  some  light 
from  one  who  had  studied  human  law.  But  it  was  a 
thought  to  be  paused  upon,  and  not  followed  out  rashly; 
some  other  guidance  might  intervene. 

Esther  noticed  that  her  father  was  in  a  fit  of  abstraction, 
that  he  seemed  to  swallow  his  cofi'ee  and  toast  quite  uncon- 
sciously, and  that  he  vented  from  time  to  time  a  low 
guttural  interjection,  which  was  habitual  with  him  when 


160  FELIX   HOLT, 

he  was  absorbed  by  an  inward  discussion.  Slie  did  not 
disturb  him  by  remarks,  and  only  wondered  whether  any- 
thing unusual  had  occurred  on  Sunday  evening.  But  at 
last  she  thought  it  needful  to  say,  ''You  recollect  what  I 
told  you  yesterday,  father?" 

"Nay,  child;  what?"  said  Mr.  Lyon,  rousing  himself. 

"  That  Mr.  Jermyn  asked  me  if  you  would  probably  be 
at  home  this  morning  before  one  o'clock." 

Esther  was  surprised  to  see  her  father  start  and  change 
color  as  if  he  had  been  shaken  by  some  sudden  collision 
before  he  answered — 

"Assuredly;  I  do  not  intend  to  move  from  my  study 
after  I  have  once  been  out  to  give  this  letter  to  Zachary." 

"S-hall  I  tell  Lyddy  to  take  him  up  at  once  to  your 
study  if  he  comes?  If  not,  I  shall  have  to  stay  in  my  own 
room,  because  I  shall  be  at  home  all  this  morning,  and  it 
is  rather  cold  now  to  sit  without  a  fire." 

"Yes,  my  dear,  let  him  come  up  to  me;  unless,  indeed, 
he  should  bring  a  second  person,  which  might  happen, 
seeing  that  in  all  likelihood  he  is  coming,  as  hitherto,  on 
electioneering  business.  And  I  could  not  well  accommo- 
date two  visitors  up-stairs." 

While  Mr.  Lyon  went  out  to  Zachary,  the  pew-opener, 
to  give  him  a  second  time  the  commission  of  carrying  a 
letter  to  Treby  Manor,  Esther  gave  her  injunction  to 
Lyddy  that  if  one  gentleman  came  he  was  to  be  shown 
up-stairs  —  if  two,  they  were  to  be  shown  into  the  parlor. 
But.  she  had  to  resolve  various  questions  before  Lyddy 
clearly  saw  what  was  expected  of  her  —  as  that,  "if  it 
was  the  gentleman  as  came  on  Thursday  in  the  pepper- 
and-salt  coat,  was  he  to  be  shown  up-stairs?  And  the 
gentleman  from  the  Manor  yesterday  as  went  out  whis- 
tling—  had  Miss  Esther  lieard  about  him?  There  seemed 
no  end  of  these  great  folks  coming  to  Malthouse  Yard 
since  there  was  talk  of  the  election;  but  they  might  be 
poor  lost  creatures  the  most  of  'em."  Whereupon  Lyddy 
shook  her  head  and  groaned,  under  an  edifying  desjDair  as 
to  the  future  lot  of  gentlemen  callers. 

Esther  always  avoided  asking  questions  of  Lyddy,  who 
found  an  answer  as  she  found  a  key,  by  pouring  out  a 
pocketful  of  miscellanies.  But  she  had  remarked  so  many 
indications  that  something  liad  happened  to  cause  her 
father  unusual  excitement  and  mental  preoccupation,  that 
she  could  not  help  connecting  with  them  the  fact  of  this 
visit  from  the  Manor,  which  he  had  not  mentioned  to  her. 


THE    RADICAL.  ,     161 

She  sat  down  in  the  dull  parlor  and  took  np  her  netting; 
for  since  Sunday  she  had  felt  unable  to  read  when  she  was 
alone,  being  obliged,  in  spite  of  herself,  to  think  of  Felix 
Holt  —  to  imagine  what  he  would  like  her  to  be,  and  what 
sort  of  views  he  took  of  life  so  as  to  make  it  seem  valuable 
in  the  absence  of  all  elegance,  luxury,  gayety,  or  romance. 
Had  he  yet  reflected  that  he  had  behaved  very  rudely  to 
her  on  Sunday?  Perhaps  not.  Perhaps  he  had  dismissed 
lier  from  his  mind  with  contempt.  And  at  that  thought 
Esther's  eyes  smarted  unpleasantly.  She  was  fond  of 
netting,  because  it  showed  to  advantage  both  her  hand 
and  her  foot;  and  across  this  image  of  Felix  Holt's  indif- 
ference and  contempt  there  passed  the  vaguer  image  of  a 
possible  somebody  wlio  would  admire  her  hands  and  feet, 
and  delight  in  looking  at  their  beauty,  and  long,  yet  not 
dare,  to  kiss  them.  Life  would  be  much  easier  in  the 
presence  of  such  a  love.  But  it  was  precisely  this  longing 
after  her  own  satisfaction  that  Felix  had  reproached  her 
with.  Did  he  want  her  to  be  heroic?  That  seemed 
impossible  without  some  great  occasion.  Her  life  was  a 
heap  of  fragments,  and  so  were  her  thoughts:  some  great 
energy  was  needed  to  bind  them  together.  Esther  was 
beginning  to  lose  her  complacency  at  her  own  wit  and 
criticism;  to  lose  the  sense  of  superiority  in  an  awakening 
need  for  reliance  on  one  whose  vision  was  wider^  v\'hose 
nature  was  purer  and  stronger  tlian  her  own.  But  then, 
she  said  to  herself,  that  "one"  must  be  tender  to  her, 
not  rude  and  predominating  in  his  manners.  A  man 
with  any  chivalry  in  him  could  never  adopt  a  scolding 
tone  toward  a  woman  —  that  is,  toward  a  charming  woman. 
But  Felix  had  no  chivalry  in  him.  He  loved  lecturing 
and  opinion  too  well  ever  to  love  any  woman. 

In  this  way  Esther  strove  to  see  that  Felix  was  thor- 
oughly in  the  wrong — at  least,  if  he  did  not  come  again 
expressly  to  show  that  he  was  sorry. 

11 


162  FELIX    HOLT, 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

Truehlue.    These  men  have  no  votes.    Why  should  I  court  them  ? 

Ch'ayfnx.    No  votes,  but  power. 

Truehlue.    What !  over  charities  ? 

Grayfox.  No,  over  brains:  which  disturbs  the  canvass.  In  a  natural 
state  of  thing's  the  average  price  of  a  vote  at  Paddlebrook  is  nine-and-six- 
lience,  throwing-  the  fifty  pound  tenants,  who  cost  nothing,  into  the  divisor. 
But  these  talking  men  cause  an  artificial  rise  of  prices. 

The  exjjected  important  knock  at  the  door  came  about 
twelve  o'clock,  and  Esther  could  hear  that  there  were  two 
visitors.  Immediately  the  parlor  door  Avas  opened  and  the 
shaggy-haired,  cravatiess  image  of  Felix  Holt,  which  was 
just  then  full  in  the  mirror  of  Esther's  mind,  was  displaced 
by  the  highly-contrasted  ajjpearance  of  a  personage  whose 
name  she  guessed  before  Mr.  Jermyn  had  announced  it. 
The  perfect  morning  costume  of  that  day  differed  much 
from  our  present  ideal:  it  was  essential  that  a  gentleman's 
chin  should  be  well  projDped,  that  his  collar  should  have  a 
voluminous  roll,  that  his  waistcoat  should  imply  much 
discrimination,  and  that  his  buttons  should  be  arranged  in 
a  manner  which  would  now  expose  him  to  general  contemjDt. 
And  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  at  the  distant  period 
when  Treby  Magna  first  knew  the  excitements  of  an  elec- 
tion, there  existed  many  other  anomalies  now  obsolete, 
besides  short- waisted  coats  and  broad  stiff eners. 

But  we  have  some  notions  of  beauty  and  fitness  which 
withstand  the  centuries;  and  quite  irrespective  of  dates,  it 
would  be  pronounced  that  at  the  age  of  thirty-four  Harold 
Transome  was  a  striking  and  handsome  man.  He  was  one 
of  those  people,  as  Dcnner  had  remarked,  to  whose  pres- 
ence in  the  room  you  could  not  be  indifferent;  if  you  do 
not  hate  or  dread  them,  you  must  find  the  touch  of  their 
hands,  nay,  their  very  shadows,  agreeable. 

Esther  felt  a  pleasure  quite  new  to  her  as  she  saw  his 
finely-embrowned  face  and  full  bright  eyes  turned  toward 
her  with  an  air  of  deference  by  which  gallantry  must  com- 
mend itself  to  a  refined  woman  who  is  not  absolutely  free 
from  vanity.  Harold  Transome  regarded  women  as  slight 
things,  but  he  was  fond  of  slight  things  in  the  intervals  of 
business;  and  he  held  it  among  the  chief  arts  of  life  to 
keep  these  pleasant  diversions  within  such  bounds  that 
they  should  never  interfere  with  the  course  of  his  serious 
ambition.  Esther  was  perfectly  aware,  as  he  took  a  chair 
near  her,  that  he  was  under  some  admiring  surprise  at  her 


THE   EADICAL.  163 

appearance  and  manner.  How  could  it  be  otherwise?  She 
believed  that  in  the  eyes  of  a  high-bred  man  no  young  lady 
in  Treby  could  equal  her:  she  felt  a  glow  of  delight  at  the 
•sense  that  she  was  being  looked  at. 

"  My  father  expected  jovl,"  she  said  to  Mr.  Jermyn. 
'1  delivered  your  letter  to  him  yesterday.  He  will  be 
down  immediately." 

She  disentangled  her  foot  from  her  netting  and  wound 
it  up. 

"I  hope  you  are  not  going  to  let  us  disturb  you,"  said 
Harold,  noticing  her  action.  '"'We  come  to  discuss  elec- 
tion aifairs,  and  we  particularly  desire  to  interest  the 
ladles." 

"  I  have  no  interest  with  any  one  who  is  not  already  on 
the  right  side,"  said  Esther  smiling. 

"  I  am  happy  to  see  at  least  that  you  wear  the  Liberal 
colors. " 

"I  fear  I  must  confess  that  it  is  more  from  love  of  blue 
than  from  love  of  Liberalism.  Yellow  opinions  could  only 
have  brunettes  on  their  side."  Esther  spoke  with  her  usual 
pretty  fluency,  but  she  had  no  sooner  uttered  the  words 
than  she  thought  how  angry  they  would  have  made  Felix. 

"  If  my  cause  is  to  be  recommended  by  the  becomingness 
of  my  colors,  then  I  am  sure  you  are  acting  in  my  interest 
by  wearing  them." 

Esther  rose  to  leave  the  room. 

"  Must  you  really  go?"  said  Harold,  preparing  to  open 
the  dooi-  for  her. 

*'Yes,  I  have  an  engagement — a  lesson  at  half-past 
twelve,"  said  Esther,  bowing  and  floating  out  like  a  blue- 
robed  Naiad,  but  not  without  a  suffused  blush  as  she  passed 
through  the  doorway. 

It  was  a  pity  the  room  was  so  small,  Harold  Transonic 
thought:  this  girl  ought  to  walk  in  a  house  where  there 
were  halls  and  corridors.  But  he  had  soon  dismissed 
this  chance  preoccupation  with  Esther;  for  before  the  door 
was  closed  again  Mr.  Lyon  had  entered,  and  Harold  was 
entirely  bent  on  what  had  been  the  object  of  his  visit.  The 
minister,  though  no  elector  liiraself,  had  considerable  influ- 
ence over  Libend  electors,  and  it  was  the  part  of  wisdom  in 
a  candidate  to  cement  all  political  adhesion  by  a  little  per- 
sonal regard,  if  possible.  Garstin  was  a  harsh  and  wiry 
fellow;  he  seemed  to  suggest  that  sour  whey,  which  some 
say  was  the  original  meaning  of  AVliig  in  the  Scottish,  and 
it  might  assist  the  theoretic  advantages  of  Radicalism  if  it 


164  I'ELIX   HOLT, 

could  be  associated  with  a  more  generous  presence.  What 
would  conciliate  the  personal  regard  of  old  Mr.  Lyon 
became  a  curious  problem  to  Harold,  now  the  little  man 
made  his  appearance.  But  canvassing  makes  a  gentleman 
acquainted  with  many  strange  animals,  together  with  the 
ways  of  catching  and  taming  them;  and  thus  the  knowl- 
edge of  natural  history  advances  amongst  the  aristocracy 
and  the  wealthy  commoners  of  our  land. 

"  I  am  very  glad  to  have  secured  this  opportunity  of 
making  your  personal  acquaintance,  Mr.  Lyon,"  said 
Harold,  putting  out  his  hand  to  the  minister  when  Jermyn 
had  mentioned  his  name.  "I  am  to  address  the  electors 
here,  in  the  Market-Place,  to-morrow;  and  I  should  have 
been  sorry  to  do  so  without  Srst  paying  my  respects  pri- 
vately to  my  chief  friends,  as  there  may  be  points  on  which 
they  particularly  wish  me  to  explain  myself." 

"  You  speak  civilly,  sir,  and  reasonably,"  said  Mr.  Lyon, 
with  a  vague  shortsighted  gaze,  in  which  a  candidate's 
appearance  evidently  went  for  nothing.  "  Pray  be  seated, 
gentlemen.     It  is  my  habit  to  stand." 

He  placed  himself  at  a  right  angle  with  his  visitors,  his 
worn  look  of  intellectual  eagerness,  slight  frame,  and  rusty 
attire,  making  an  odd  contrast  with  their  flourishing  per- 
sons, unblemished  costume,  and  comfortable  freedom  from 
excitement.  The  group  was  fairly  tj'pical  of  the  difference 
between  the  men  who  are  animated  by  ideas  and  the  men 
who  are  expected  to  apply  them.  Then  he  drew  forth  his 
spectacles,  and  began  to  rub  them  with  the  thin  end  of  his 
coat  tail.  He  was  inwardly  exercising  great  self-mastery — 
suppressing  the  thought  of  his  personal  needs,  which 
Jermyn's  presence  tended  to  suggest,  in  order  that  he 
might  be  equal  to  the  larger  duties  of  this  occasion. 

"^I  am  aware  —  Mr.  Jermyn  has  told  me,"  said  Harold, 
'*  what  good  service  you  have  done  me  already,  Mr.  Lyon. 
The  fact  is,  a  man  of  intellect  like  you  was  especuilly 
needed  in  my  case.  The  race  I  am  running  is  really  against 
Garstin  only,  who  calls  himself  a  Liberal,  though  he  cares 
for  nothing,  and  understands  nothing,  except  the  interests 
of  the  wealthy  traders.  And  you  have  been  able  to  explain 
the  difference  between  Liberal  and  Liberal,  which,  as  you 
and  I  know,  is  something  like  the  difference  between  fish 
and  fish." 

"Your  comparison  is  not  unapt,  sir,"  said  Mr.  Lyon, 
still  holding  his  spectacles  in  his  hand,  "at  this  epoch, 
when  the   mind  of   the  nation  has  been  strained  on  the 


THE   RADICAL.  165 

passing  of  one  measure.  Where  a  great  weight  has  to  be 
moved,  we  require  not  so  much  selected  instruments  as 
abundant  horse-power.  But  it  is  an  unavoidable  evil  of 
these  massive  achievements  that  they  encourage  a  coarse 
undiscrimiuatingness  obstructive  of  more  nicely-wrought 
results,  and  an  exaggerated  expectation  inconsistent  with 
the  intricacies  of  our  fallen  and  struggling  condition.  I 
say  not  that  compromise  is  unnecessary,  but  it  is  an  evil 
attendant  on  our  imperfection;  and  I  would  pray  every 
one  to  mark  that,  where  compromise  broadens,  intellect 
and  conscience  are  thrust  into  narrower  room.  Wherefore 
it  has  been  my  object  to  show  our  people  that  there  are 
many  who  have  helped  to  draw  the  car  of  Reform,  whose 
ends  are  but  partial,  and  who  forsake  not  the  ungodly 
principle  of  selfish  alliances,  but  would  only  substitute 
Syria  for  Egypt — thinking  chiefly  of  their  own  share  in 
peacocks,  gold  and  ivory." 

"  Just  so,"  said  Harold,  who  was  quick  at  new  languages, 
and  still  quicker  at  translating  other  men's  generalities  into 
his  own  special  and  immediate  purposes,  "men  who  will 
be  satisfied  if  they  can  only  bring  in  a  plutocracy,  buy  up 
the  land,  and  stick  the  old  crests  on  their  new  gateways. 
Now  the  practical  point  to  secure  against  these  false  Liber- 
als at  present  is,  that  our  electors  should  not  divide  their 
votes.  As  it  appears  that  many  who  vote  for  Debarry  are 
likely  to  split  their  votes  in  favor  of  Garstin,  it  is  of  the 
llrst  consequence  that  my  voters  should  give  me  plumpers. 
If  they  divide  their  votes  they  can't  keep  out  Debarry,  and 
they  may  help  to  keep  out  me.  I  feel  some  confidence  in 
asking  you  to  use  your  influence  in  this  direction,  Mr. 
Lyon.  We  candidates  have  to  praise  ourselves  more  than 
is  graceful;  but  you  are  aware  that,  while  I  belong  by  my 
1)irth  to  the  classes  that  have  their  roots  in  tradition  and 
all  the  old  loyalties,  my  experience  has  lain  chiefly  among 
those  who  make  their  own  career,  and  depend  on  the  new 
rather  than  the  old.  I  have  had  the  advantage  of  con- 
sidering the  national  welfare  under  varied  lights:  I  have 
wider  views  than  those  of  a  mere  cotton  lord.  On  ques- 
tions connected  with  religious  liberty  I  would  stop  short  at 
no  measure  that  was  not  tliorough." 

"I  hope  not,  sir — I  hope  not,"  said  Mr.  Lyon,  gravely; 
finally  putting  on  his  spectacles  and  examining  the  face  of 
the  candidate,  whom  he  was  preparing  to  turn  into  a  cat- 
echumen. For  the  good  Rnfus,  conscious  of  his  ])olitical 
importance  as  an  organ  of  persuasion,  felt  it  his  duty  to 


166  FELIX   HOLT, 

catecliise  a  little,  and  also  to  do  his  part  toward  impress- 
ing a  probable  legislator  with  a  sense  of  his  responsibility. 
But  the  latter  branch  of  duty  somewhat  obstructed  the 
catechising,  for  his  mind  was  urged  by  considerations 
which  he  held  in  danger  of  being  overlooked,  that  the 
questions  and  answers  bore  a  very  slender  proportion  to 
his  exposition.  It  was  impossible  to  leave  the  question  of 
church-rates  without  noting  the  grounds  of  their  injustice, 
and  without  a  brief  enumeration  of  reasons  why  Mr.  Lyon, 
for  his  own  part,  would  not  present  that  passive  resi.^tance 
to  a  legal  imposition  which  had  been  adopted  by  the 
Friends  (whose  heroism  in  this  regard  was  nevertheless 
worthy  of  all  honor). 

Comprehensive  talkers  are  ajjt  to  be  tiresome  when  we 
are  not  athirst  for  information,  but,  to  be  quite  fair,  we 
must  admit  that  superior  reticence  is  a  good  deal  due 
to  the  lack  of  matter.  Spgecii  is  often  barren;  but  silence 
also  does  not  necessarily  brood  over  a  full  nest.  Your  still 
fowl,  blinking  at  you  without  remark,  may  all  the  while 
be  sitting  on  one  addled  nest-egg;  and  when  it  takes  to 
cackling,  will  have  nothing  to  announce  but  that  addled 
delusion. 

Harold  Transome  was  not  at  all  a  patient  man,  but  in 
matters  of  business  he  was.  quite  awake  to  his  cue,  and  in 
this  case  it  was  perhaps  easier  to  listen  than  to  answer 
questions.  But  Jermyn,  who  had  plenty  of  work  on  his 
hands,  took  an  ojiportunity  of  rising,  and  saying,  as  he 
looked  at  his  watch — 

"I  must  really  be  at  the  office  in  five  minutes.  You 
will  find  me  there,  Mr.  Transome;  you  have  probably  still 
many  things  to  say  to  Mr.  Lyon." 

"I  beseech  you,  sir,"  said  the  minister,  changing  color, 
and  by  a  quick  movement  laying  his  hand  on  Jermyn's 
arm — "I  beseech  you  to  favor  me  with  an  interview  on 
some  private  business — this  evening,  if  it  were  possible." 

Mr.  Lyon,  like  others  who  are  habitually  occupied  with 
impersonal  subjects,  was  liable  to  this  impulsive  sort  of 
action.  He  snatched  at  the  details  of  life  as  if  they  were 
darting  past  him — as  if  they  were  like  the  ribbons  at  his 
knees,  which  would  never  be  tied  all  day  if  they  were  not 
tied  on  the  instant.  Through  these  spasmodic  leaps  out 
of  his  abstractions  into  real  life,  it  constantly  happened 
that  he  suddenly  took  a  course  which  had  been  the  subject 
of  too  much  doubt  with  him  ever  to  have  been  determined 
on   by   continuous   thought.     And    if    Jermyn    had    not 


THE    RADICAL.  167 

startled  him  by  threatening  to  vanish  just  when  he  was 
plunged  in  politics,  he  might  never  have  made  up  his  mind 
to  confide  in  a  worldly  attorney. 

C'iVn  odd  man/'  as  Mrs.  Sluscat  observed,  "to  have 
such  a  gift  in  the  pulpit.     But  there's  One  knows  better 

than  we  do "  which,  in  a  lady  who  rarely  felt  her 

judgment  at  a  loss,  was  a  concession  that  showed  much 
piei^y.) 

Jermyn  was  surprised  at  the  little  man^s  eagerness. 
''By  all  means,"  he  answered,  quite  cordially.  "Could 
you  come  to  my  office  at  eight  o'clock?" 

"For  several  reasons,  I  must  beg  you  to  come  to  me.'* 

"  Oh,  very  good.  I'll  walk  out  and  see  you  this  evening, 
if  possible.  I  shall  have  much  pleasure  in  being  of  any 
use  to  you."  Jermyn  felt  that  in  the  eyes  of  Harold  he 
was  appearing  all  the  more  valuable  when  his  services 
were  thus  in  request.  He  went  out,  and  Mr.  Lyon  easily 
relapsed  into  politics,  for  he  had  been  on  the  brink  of  a 
favorite  subject  on  vv'hich  he  was  at  issue  with  his  fellow- 
Liberals. 

At  that  time,  when  faith  in  the  efficacy  of  political 
change  was  at  fever-heat  in  ardent  Reformers,  many  meas- 
ures which  men  are  still  discussing  with  little  confidence 
on  either  side,  were  then  talked  about  and  disposed  of 
like  property  in  near  reversion.  Crying  abuses — "'  bloated 
paupers,"  "bloated  pluralists,"  and  other  corruptions 
hindering  men  from  being  wise  and  happy — had  to  be 
fought  against  and  slain.  Such  a  time  is  a  time  of  hope. 
Afterward,  when  the  corpses  of  those  monsters  have  been 
held  up  to  the  public  wonder  and  abhorrence,  and  yet  wis- 
dom and  happiness  do  not  follow,  but  rather  a  more 
abundant  breeding  of  the  foolish  and  unhappy,  comes  a 
time  of  doubt  and  des})ondency.  But  in  the  great  Reform- 
year  Hope  was  mighty:  the  prospect  of  Reform  had  even 
served  the  voters  instead  of  drink;  and  in  one  place,  at 
least,  there  had  been  "a  dry  election."  And  now  the 
speakers  at  Reform  banquets  were  exuberant  in  congratu- 
lation and  promise:  Liberal  clergymen  of  the  Establish- 
ment toasted  Liberal  Catholic  clergymen  without  any 
allusion  to  scarlet,  and  Catholic  clergymen  replied  with  a 
like  tender  reserve.  Some  dwelt  on"^the  abolition  of  all 
abuses,  and  on  millennial  blessedness  generally;  others, 
whose  imaginations  were  less  suffused  with  exhalations  of 
the  dawn,  insisted  chiefly  on  the  ballot-box. 

Xow  on  this  question  of  the  ballot  the  minister  strongly 


168  FELIX  HOLT, 

took  the  negative  side.  Our  pet  opinions  are  usually  those 
which  place  us  in  a  minority  of  a  minority  amongst  our 
oAvn  party: — very  happily,  else  those  poor  opinions,  born 
with  no  silver  spoon  in  their  mouths — how  would  they  get 
nourished  and  fed?  So  it  was  with  Mr.  Lyon  and  his 
objection  to  the  ballot.  But  he  had  thrown  out  a  remark 
on  the  subject  which  was  not  quite  clear  to  his  hearer,  who 
interpreted  it  according  to  his  best  calculation  of  prob- 
abilities. 

"I  have  no  objection  to  the  ballot,"  said  Harold,  "but 
I  think  that  is  not  the  sort  of  thing  we  have  to  work  at 
just  now.  We  shouldn't  get  it.  And  other  questions  are 
imminent." 

"Then,  sir,  you  would  vote  for  the  ballot?"  said  Mr. 
Lyon,  stroking  his  chin. 

"  Certainly,,  if  the  point  came  up.  I  have  too  much 
respect  for  the  freedom  of  the  voter  to  oppose  anything 
which  offers  a  chance  of  making  that  freedom  more 
complete." 

Mr.  Lyon  looked  at  the  speaker  with  a  pitying  smile  and 
a  subdued  "h'm — m — m,"  which  Harold  took  for  a  sign 
of  satisfaction.     He  was  soon  undeceived. 

"You  grieve  me,  sir;  you  grieve  me  much.  And  I  pray 
you  to  reconsider  this  question,  for  it  will  take  you  to  the 
root,  as  I  think,  of  political  morality.  I  engage  to  show 
to  any  impartial  mind,  duly  furnished  with  the  principles 
of  public  and  private  rectitude,  that  the  ballot  would  be 
pernicious,  and  that  if  it  were  not  pernicious  it  would  still 
•  be  futile.  I  will  show,  first,  that  it  would  be  futile  as  a 
preservative  from  bribery  and  illegitimate  influence;  and, 
secondly,  that  it  would  be  in  the  worst  kind  pernicious,  as 
shutting  the  door  against  those  influences  whereby  the  soul 
of  a  man  and  the  character  of  a  citizen  are  duly  educated 
for  their  great  functions.  Be  not  alarmed  if  I  detain  you, 
sir.     It  is  well  worth  the  while." 

"  Confound  this  old  man,"  thought  Harold.  "  I'll  never 
make  a  canvassing  call  on  a  preacher  again,  unless  he  has 
lost  his  voice  from  a  cold."  He  was  going  to  excuse  hirii- 
self  as  prudently  as  he  could,  by  deferring  the  subject  till 
the  morrow,  and  inviting  Mr.  Lyon  to  come  to  him  in  the 
committee-room  before  the  time  appointed  for  his  public 
speech;  but  he  was  relieved  by  the  opening  of  the  door. 
Lyddy  put  in  her  head  to  say — 

"  If  3^ou  please,  sir,  here's  Mr.  Holt  wants  to  know  if  he 
may  come  in  and  speak  to  the  gentleman.     He  begs  your 


THE   KADICAL.  169 

pardou,  but  you're  to  say'  '  no '  if  you  don't  like  liim  to 


come," 


•'JSTay,  show  him  in  at  once,  Lyddy.  A  young  man,"  Mr. 
Lyon  went  on,  speaking  to  Harold,  ''whom  a  representa- 
tive ought  to  know  —  no  voter,  but  a  man  of  ideas  and 
study." 

"He  is  thoroughly  welcome,"  said  Harold,  truthfully 
enough,  though  he  felt  little  interest  in  the  voteless  man 
of  ideas  except  as  a  diversion  from  the  subject  of  the  bal- 
lot. He  had  been  standing  for  the  last  minute  or  two,  feel- 
ing less  of  a  victim  in  that  attitude,  and  more  able  to 
calculate  on  means  of  escape. 

"  Mr.  Holt,  sir,"  said  the  minister,  as  Felix  entered,  "is 
a  young  friend  of  mine,  whose  opinions  on  some  points  I 
hope  to  see  altered,  but  Avho  has  a  zeal  for  public  justice 
which  I  trust  he  will  never  lose." 

"I  am  glad  to  see  Mr.  Holt,"  said  Harold,  bowing.  He 
perceived  from  the  way  in  which  Felix  bowed  to  him  and 
turned  to  the  most  distant  spot  in  the  room,  that  the  can- 
didate's shake  of  the  hand  would  not  be  welcome  here. 
"  A  formidable  fellow,"  he  thought,  "•■  capable  of  mounting 
a  cart  in  the  market-place  to-morrow  and  cross-examining 
me,  if  I  say  anything  that  doesn't  please  him." 

"Mr.  Lyon,"  said  Felix,  "I  have  taken  a  liberty  with 
you  in  asking  to  see  Mr.  Transome  when  he  is  engaged 
with  you.  But  I  have  to  speak  to  him  on  a  matter  which 
I  shouldn't  care  to  make  public  at  present,  and  it  is  one  on 
which  I  am  sure  you  will  back  me.  I  heard  that  Mr. 
Transome  was  here,  so  I  ventured  to  come.  I  hope  you 
will  both  excuse  me,  as  my  business  refers  to  some  elec- 
tioneering measures  which  are  being  taken  by  Mr.  Tran- 
some's  agents."      * 

"  Pray  go  on,"  said  Harold,  expecting  something  unpleas- 
ant. 

"  I'm  not  going  to  speak  against  treating  voters,"  said 
Felix;  "  I  suppose  buttered  ale,  and  grease  of  that  sort  to 
make  the  wheels  go,  belong  to  the  necessary  humbug  of 
representation.  But  I  wish  to  ask  you,  Mr.  Transome, 
whether  it  is  with  your  knowledge  that  agents  of  yours  are 
bribing  rough  fellows  wlio  are  no  voters  —  the  colliers  and 
navvies  at  Sproxton — with  the  chance  of  extra  drunkenness, 
tliat  they  may  make  a  posse  on  your  side  at  the  nomination 
and  polling?  " 

"Certainly  not,"  said  Harold.  "You  are  aware,  my 
dear  sir,  that  a  candidate  is  verv  much  at  the  mercy  of  his 


170  FELIX   HOLT 


agents  as  to  the  means  by  which  he  is  returned,  especially 
when  many  years'  absence  has  made  liim  a  stranger  to  the 
men  actually  conducting  business.  But  are  you  sure  of 
your  facts  ?  " 

"As  sure  as  my  senses  can  make  me,"  said  Felix,  who 
then  briefly  described  what  had  happened  on  Sunday. 
I  believed  that  you  were  ignorant  of  all  this,  Mr.  Tran- 
some,"  he  ended,  "and  that  was  why  I  thought  some  good 
might  be  done  by  speaking  to  you.  If  not,  I  should  be 
tempted  to  exi)ose  the  whole  affair  as  a  disgrace  to  the 
lladical  party.  I'm  a  Eadical  myself,  and  mean  to  work 
all  my  life  long  against  privilege,  monopoly,  and  oppres- 
sion. But  I  would  rather  be  a  livery-servant  proud  of  my 
master's  title,  than  I  would  seem  to  make  common  cause 
with  scoundrels  who  turn  the  best  hopes  of  men  into 
by-words  for  cant  and  dishonesty." 

"Your  energetic  protest  is  needless  here,  sir/'  said 
Harold,  offended  at  what  sounded  like  a  threat,  and  was 
certainly  premature  enough  to  be  in  bad  taste.  In  fact, 
this  error  of  behavior  in  Felix  proceeded  from  a  repulsion 
which  was  mutual.  It  was  a  constant  source  of  irritation 
to  him  that  the  imblic  men  on  his  side  were,  on  the  whole, 
not  conspicuously  better  than  the  public  men  on  the  other 
side;  that  the  spirit  of  innovation,  which  with  him  was  a 
part  of  religion,  was  in  many  of  its  mouthpieces  no  more 
of  a  religion  than  the  faith  in  rotten  boroughs;  and  he 
was  thus  predisposed  to  distrust  Harold  Transome.  Har- 
old, in  his  turn,  disliked  impracticable  notions  of  loftiness 
and  purity  —  disliked  all  enthusiasm;  and  he  thought  he 
saw  a  very  troublesome,  vigorous  incorporation  of  that 
nonsense  in  Felix.  But  it  would  be  foolish  to  exasperate 
him  in  any  way.  • 

"If  you  choose  to  accompany  me  to  Jermyn's  office,"  he 
went  on,  "the  matter  shall  be  inquired  into  in  your  pres- 
ence. -I  think  you  will  agree  with  me,  Mr.  Lyon,  that 
this  will  be  the  most  satisfactory  course." 

"Doubtless,"  said  the  minister,  who  liked  the  candidate 
very  well,  and  believed  that  he  would  be  amenable  to 
argument;  "and  I  M-ould  caution  my  young  friend  against 
a  too  great  hastiness  of  words  and  action.  David's  cause 
against  Saul  was  a  righteous  one;  nevertheless  not  all  who 
clave  unto  David  were  righteous  men." 

"The  more  Avas  the  pity,  sir,"  said  Felix.  "Especially 
if  he  winked  at  their  malpractices." 


THE   RADICAL.  171 

Mr.  Lyon  smiled,  shook  his  head,  and  stroked  his  favor- 
ite's arm  deprecatjuglj. 

"It  is  rather  too  much  for  any  man  to  keep  the  con- 
sciences of  all  his  party/'  said  "Harold.  "If  you  had 
lived  in  the  East,  as  I  have,  you  would  be  more  tolerant. 
More  tolerant,  for  example,  of  an  active  industrious  selfish- 
ness, such  as  we  have  here,  though  it  may  not  always  be 
quite  scrupulous:  you  would  see  how  much  better  it  is 
than  an  idle  selfishness.  I  have  heard  it  said,  a  bridge  is 
a  good  thing — worth  helping  to  make,  though  half  the 
men  who  worked  at  it  were  rogues." 

"Oh,  yes!"  said  Felix,  scornfully,  "give  me  a  handful 
of  generalities  and  analogies,  and  I'll  undertake  to  justify 
Burke  and  Hare,  and  prove  them  benefactors  of  their 
species.  I'll  tolerate  no  nuisances  but  such  as  I  can't  help; 
and  the  question  now  is,  not  whether  we  can  do  away  with 
all  the  nuisajices  in  the  Avorld,  but  with  a  particular 
nuisance  under  our  noses." 

"Then  we  had  better  cut  the  matter  short,  as  I  propose, 
by  going  at  once  to  Jermyn's,"  said  Harold.  "In  that 
case,  I  must  bid  you  good-morning,  Mr.  Lyon." 

"I  would  fain,"  said,  the  minister,  looking  uneasy — "I 
would  fain  have  had  a  further  opportunity  of  considering 
that  question  of  the  ballot  with  you.  The  reasons  against 
it  need  not  be  urged  lengthily;  they  only  require  complete 
enumeration  to  prevent  any  seeming  hiatus,  where  an 
opposing  fallacy  might  thiiist  itself  in," 

"Never  fear,  sir,"  said  Harold,  shaking  Mr.  Lyon's 
hand  cordially,  "there  will  be  opportunities.  Shall  I  not 
see  you  in  the  committee-room  to-morrow?" 

"1  think  not,"  said  Mr.  Lyon,  rubbing  his  brow,  with 
a  sad  remembrance  of  his  personal  anxieties.  "But  I  will 
send  you,  if  you  will  permit  me,  a  brief  writing,  on  which 
vou  can  meditate  at  your  leisure." 

"I  shall  bo  delighted.     Good-bye." 

Harold  and  Felix  went  out  together;  and  the  minister, 
going  up  to  his  dull  study,  asked  himself  whether,  under 
the  pressure  of  conflicting  experience,  he  had  faithfully 
disci larged  the  duties  of  the  past  interview? 

If  a  cynical  sprite  were  present,  riding  on  one  of  the 
motes  in  that  dusty  room,  he  may  have  made  himself 
merry  at  the  illusions  of  the  little  minister  who  brought  so 
much  conscience  to  bear  on  the  production  of  so  slight  an 
effect.  I  confess  to  smiling  myself,  being  skeptical  as  to 
the  effect  of  ardent  appeals  and  nice  distinctions  on  gen- 


173  FELIX   HOLT, 

tlemen  who  are  got  up,  both  inside  and  out,  as  candidates 
in  the  style  of  the  period;  but  I  never  smiled  at  Mr. 
Lyon's  trustful  energy  without  falling  to  penitence  and 
veneration  immediately  after.  For  what  we  call  illusions 
are  often,  in  truth,  a  Avider  vision  of  past  and  present 
realities  —  a  Avilling  movement  of  a  man's  soul  with  the 
larger  sweep  of  the  world's  forces  —  a  movement  toward  a 
more  assured  end  than  the  chances  of  a  single  life.  We 
see  human  heroism  broken  into  units  and  say,  this  unit 
did  little  —  might  as  well  not  have  been.  But  in  this  way 
we  might  break  up  a  great  army  into  units;  in  this  way 
we  might  break  the  sunlight  into  fragments,  and  think 
that  this  and  the  other  might  be  cheaply  parted  with. 
Let  us  rather  raise  a  monument  to  the  soldiers  whose 
brave  hearts  only  kept  the  ranks  unbroken  and  met 
death  —  a  monument  to  the  faithful  who  were  not  famous, 
and  who  are  precious  as  the  continuity  of  the  sunbeams  is 
precious,  though  some  of  them  fall  unseen  and  on  bar- 
renness. 

At  present,  looking  back  on  that  day  at  Treby,  it  seems 
to  me  that  the  sadder  illusion  lay  with  Harold  Transome, 
who  was  trusting  in  his  own  skill  to  shape  the  success  of 
his  own  morrows,  ignorant  of  what  many  yesterdays  had 
determined  for  him  beforehand. 


CHAPTER    XVIL 


It  is  a  good  and  soothfast  saw  ; 
Half-roasted  never  will  be  raw ; 
No  dough  is  dried  once  more  to  meal. 
No  crock  new-shapen  by  the  wheel ; 
You  can't  tiu-a  curds  to  milk  again. 
Nor  Now,  by  wishing,  l;>a<:k  to  Then ; 
And  having  tasted  stolen  honey, 
You  can't  buy  innocence  for  money. 


Jeemtn  was  not  particularly  pleased  that  some  chance 
had  apparently  hindered  Harold  Transome  from  making 
other  canvassing  visits  immediately  after  leaving  Mr. 
Lyon,  and  so  had  sent  him  back  to  the  office  earlier  than 
he  had  been  expected  to  come.  The  inconvenient  chance 
he  guessed  at  once  to  be  represented  by  Felix  Holt,  whom 
he  knew  very  well  by  Trebian  report  to  be  a  young  man 
with  so  little  of  the  ordinary  Christian  motives  as  to 
making  an  appearance  and  getting  on  in  the  world,  that 


THE   RADICAL.  173 

he  presented  no  handle  to  any  judicious  and  respectable 
person  who  might  be  willing  to  make  use  of  him. 

Harold  Transome,  on  his  side,  was  a  good  deal  annoyed 
at  being  worried  by  Felix  into  an  inquiry  about  election- 
eering details.  Tlie  real  dignity  and  honesty  there  was  in 
him  made  him  shrink  from  this  necessity  of  satisfying  a 
man  with  a  troublesome  tongue;  it  was  as  if  he  were  to 
show  indignation  at  the  discovery  of  one  barrel  with  a 
false  bottom,  when  he  had  invested  his  money  in  a  manu- 
factory where  a  larger  or  smaller  number  of  such  barrels 
had  always  been  made.  A  practical  man  must  seek  a  good 
end  by  the  only  possible  means;  that  is  to  say,  if  he  is  to 
get  into  Parliament  he  must  not  be  too  particular.  It 
was  not  disgraceful  to  be  neither  a  Quixote  nor  a  theorist, 
aiming  to  correct  the  moral  rules  of  the  world;  but 
whatever  actually  was,  or  might  prove  to  be,  disgraceful, 
Harold  held  in  detestation.  In  this  mood  he  pushed  on 
unceremoniously  to  the  inner  office  without  wiMting  to  ask 
questions;  and  when  he  perceived  that  Jermyn  was  not 
alone  he  said,  with  haughty  quickness — 

"A  question  about  the  electioneering  at  Sproxton.  Can 
you  give  your  attention  to  it  at  once?  Here  is  Mr.  Holt, 
who  has  come  to  me  about  the  business." 

"A — yes — a — certainly,"  said  Jermyn,  who,  as  usual, 
was  the  more  cool  and  deliberate  because  he  was  vexed. 
He  was  standing,  and,  as  he  turned  round,  his  broad  figure 
concealed  the  person  who  was  seated  writing  at  the  bureau. 
"Mr.  Holt — a — will  doubtless — a — make  a  point  of  saving 
a  busy  man's  time.  You  can  speak  at  once.  This  gentle- 
man"— here  Jermyn  made  a  slight  backward  movement 
of  the  head — "  is  one  of  ourselves;  he  is  a  true-blue." 

"I  have  simply  to  complain,"  said  Felix,  'Hhat  one  of 
your  agents  has  been  sent  on  a  bribing  expedition  to 
Sproxton — with  what  purpose  you,  sir,  may  know  better 
than  I  do.  Mr.  Transome,  it  appears,  was  ignorant  of  the 
affair,  and  does  not  approve  it." 

Jermyn,  looking  gravely  and  steadily  at  Felix  while  he 
was  speaking,  at  the  same  time  drew  forth  a  small  sheaf  of 
papers  from  his  side  pocket,  and  then,  as  he  turned  his 
eyes  slowly  on  Harold,  felt  in  his  waistcoat-pocket  for  his 
pencil-case. 

"I  don't  approve  it  at  all,"  said  Harold,  who  hated 
Jermjm's  calculated  slowness  and  conceit  in  his  own 
impenetrability.  "  Be  good  enough  to  put  a  stop  to  it, 
will  you?" 


1T4  FELIX   HOLT, 

''Mr.  Holt,  I  know,  is  lui  excellent  Liberal,"  said  Jer- 
myii,  just  inclining  his  head  to  Harold,  and  then  alter- 
nately looking  at  Felix  and  docketing  his  bills;  "but  he  is 
perhaps  too  inexperienced  to  be  aware  that  no  canvass — 
a — can  be  conducted  without  the  action  of  able  men,  who 
must — a — be  trusted,  and  not  interfered  with.  And  as  to 
any  possibility  of  })roniisiug  to  put  a  stop- -a — to  any  jn'o- 
cedure — a — that  depends.  If  lie  had  ever  held  the  coach- 
num's  ribbons  in  his  hands,  as  1  have  in  my  younger 
days — a — he  would  know  that  stopping  is  not  always  easy." 

"I  know  very  little  about  holding  ribbons,"  said'  Felix; 
"but  1  saw  clearly  enough  at  once  that  more  mischief  had 
been  done  than  could  be  well  mended.  Though  I  believe, 
if  it  were  heartily  tried,  the  treatment  might  be  reduced, 
and  something  might  be  done  to  hinder  the  men  from 
turning  out  in  a  body  to  make  a  noise,  which  might  end 
in  worse." 

"They  might  be  hindered  from  making  a  noise  on  our 
side,""  said  Jermyn,  smiling.  "That  is  perfectly  true. 
But  if  they  made  a  noise  on  the  other — would  your  purpose 
be  answered  better,  sir?" 

Harold  was  moving  about  in  an  irritated  manner  while 
Felix  and  Jerniyn  were  speaking.  He  preferred  leaving 
the  talk  to  the  attorney,  of  whose  talk  he  himself  liked  to 
keep  as  clear  as  possible. 

"I  can  only  say,"  answered  Felix,  "that  if  you  make 
use  of  those  heavy  fellows  when  the  drink  is  in  them,  I 
shouldn't  like  your  responsibility.  You  might  as  well 
drive  bulls  to  roar  on  our  side  as  bribe  a  set  of  colliers  and 
navvies  to  sli07.\:  and  groan." 

"  A  lawyer  may  well  envy  your  command  of  language, 
Mr.  Holt,'"^  said  Jermyn,  pocketing  his  bills  again,  and 
shutting  up  his  pencil;""  but  he  would  not  be  satisfied  with 
the  accuracy — a — of  your  terms.  V^ou  must  permit  me  to 
check  your  use  of  the  word  "bribery.'  The  essence  of 
bribery  is,  that  it  should  be  legally  proved;  there  is  not 
such  a  thing — a — in  rerum  natura — a — as  unproved  brib- 
ery. There  has  been  no  such  thing  as  bribery  at  Sproxton, 
I'll  answer  for  it.  The  presence  of  a  body  of  stalwart  fel- 
loAvs  on — a — the  Liberal  side  will  tend  to  preserve  order; 
for  v.-e  know  that  the  benefit  clubs  from  the  Pitchley  dis- 
trict will  show  for  Debarry.  Indeed,  the  gentleman  who 
has  conducted  the  canvass  at  Sproxton  is  experienced  in 
Parliamentary  affairs,  and  would  not  exceed — a — the 
necessary  measures  that  a  rational  judgment  would  dictate." 


THE   RADICAL.  175 

"  What!  3'ou  mean  the  man  who  calls  himself  Johnson?" 
said  Felix,  in  a  tone  of  disgust. 

Before  Jermyn  chose  to  answer,  Harold  broke  in,  saying, 
quickly  and  peremptorily,  "The  long  and  short  of  it  is 
til  is,  Mr.  Holt:  I  shall  desire  and  insist  that  whatever  can 
be  done  by  way  of  remedy  shall  be  done.  "Will  that  satisfy 
yon?  You  see  now  some  of  the  candidate's  difficulties?" 
kiid  Harold,  breaking  into  his  most  agreeable  smile.  "I 
hope  you  will  have  some  pity  for  me." 

'•'I  supj)ose  I  must  be  content,"  said  Felix,  not  thor- 
oughly propitiated.  "I  bid  you  good-morning,  gentle- 
men." 

When  he  was  gone  out,  and  had  closed  the  door  behind 
him,  Harold,  turning  round  and  flashing,  in  spite  of  him- 
self, an  angry  look  at  Jermyn,  said — 

"And  who  is  Johnson?  an  alias,  I  suppose.  It  seems 
you  are  fond  of  the  name." 

Jermyn  turned  perceptibly  paler,  but  disagreeables  of 
this  sort  between  himself  and  Harold  had  been  too  much 
in  his  anticipations  of  late  for  him  to  be  taken  by  surprise. 
He  turned  quietly  round  and  just  touched  the  shoulder  of 
the  person  seated  at  the  bureau,  who  now  rose. 

"On  the  contrary,"  Jermyn  answered,  "the  Johnson  in 
question  is  this  gentleman,  whom.  I  have  the  pleasure  of 
introducing  to  you  as  one  of  my  most  active  helpmates  in 
electioneering  business — Mr.  Johnson,  of  Bedford  Eow, 
London.  I  am  comparatively  a  novice — a — in  these  mat- 
ters. But  he  was  engaged  with  James  Putty  in  two  hardly- 
contested  elections,  and  there  could  scarcely  be  a  better 
initiation.  Putty  is  one  of  the  first  men  of  the  country  as 
an  agent — a — on  the  Liberal  side — a — eh,  Johnson?  I 
think  Makepiece  is — a — not  altogether  a  match  for  him, 
not  quite  of  the  sdrae  calibre — a — haud  consiinili  ingenio — 
a — in  tactics — a-^and  in  experience?" 

"Makepiece  is  a  wonderful  man,  and  so  is  Putty,"  said 
the  glib  Johnson,  too  vain  not  to  be  pleased  Avith  an  oppor- 
tunity of  speaking,  even  wlien  the  situation  was  rather 
awkward.  "  Makepiece  for  scheming,  but  Putty  for  man- 
agement. Putty  knows  men,  sir,"  he  went  on,  turning  to 
Harold;  "  it's  a  thousand  pities  that  you  have  not  had  his 
talents  employed  in  your  service.  He's  beyond  any  man 
for  saving  a  candidate's  money — does  half  the  work  with 
his  tongue.  He'll  talk  of  anything,  from  the  Areopagus, 
and  that  sort  of  thing,  down  to  the  joke  about  'Where  are 
you  going,  Paddy?' — you  know  what  I  mean,  sir!     '  Back 


176  FELIX   HOLT, 

again,  says  Paddy' — an  excellent  electioneering  joke.  Putty 
understands  these  things.  He  has  said  to  me,  '  Johnson, 
bear  in  mind  there  are  two  ways  of  speaking  an  audience 
will  always  like:  one  is  to  tell  them  what  they  don't  under- 
stand; and  the  other  is,  to  tell  them  what  they're  used  to.' 
I  shall  never  be  the  man  to  deny  that  I  owe  a  great  deal  to 
Putty.  I  always  say  it  was  a  most  providential  thing  in 
the  Mugham  election  last  year  that  Putty  was  not  on  the 
Tory  side.  He  managed  the  women;  and,  if  you'll  believe 
me,  sir,  one  fourth  of  the  men  would,  never  have  voted  if 
their  wives  hadn't  driven  them  to  it  for  the  good  of  their 
families.  And  as  for  speaking — it's  currently  reported  in 
our  London  circles  that  Putty  writes  regularly  for  the 
'  Times.'  He  has  that  kind  of  language;  and  I  needn't 
tell  you,  Mr.  Transome,  that  it's  the  apex,  which,  I 
take  it,  means  the  tiptop  —  and  nobody  can  get  higher 
than  that,  I  think.  I've  belonged  to  a  political  debat- 
ing society  myself ;  I've  heard  a  little  language  in  my 
time;  but  when  Mr.  Jermyn  first  spoke  to  me  about 
having;  the  honor  to  assist  in  your  canvass  of  North 
Loamshire"  —  here  Johnson  played  with  his  watch-seals 
and  balanced  himself  a  moment  on  his  toes— ''the 
very  first  thing  I  said  was,  '  And  there's  Garstin  has  got 
Putty!  No  Whig  could  stand  against  a  Whig,'  I  said, 
'who  had  Putty  on  his  side:  I  hope  Mr.  Transome' gO'SS  in 
for  something  of  a  deeper  color.'  I  don't  say  that,  as  a 
general  rule,  opinions  go  for  much  in  a  return,  Mr.  Tran- 
some; it  depends  on  who  are  in  the  field  before  you,  and 
on  the  skill  of  your  agents.  But  as  a  Eadical,  and  a 
moneyed  Radical,  you  are  in  a  fine  position,  sir;  and  with 
care  and  judgment  —  with  care  and  judgment " 

It  had  been  impossible  to  interrupt  Johnson  before, 
without  the  most  impolitic  rudeness.  Jermyn  was  not 
sorry  that  he  should  talk,  even  if  he  made  a  fool  of  him- 
self ;  for  in  that  solid  shape,  exhibiting  the  average 
amount  of  human  foibles,  he  seemed  less  of  the  alias 
v/hich  Harold  had  insinuated  him  to  be,  and  had  all  the 
additional  plausibility  of  a  lie  with  a  circumstance. 

Harold  had  thrown  himself  with  contemptuous  resigna- 
tion into  a  chair,  had  drawn  off  one  of  his  buff  gloves,  and 
was  looking  at  his  hand.  But  when  Johnson  gave  his 
iteration  with  a  slightly  slackened  pace.  Harold  looked 
up  at  him  and  broke  in  — 

"  Well  then,  Mr.  Johnson,  I  shall  be  glad  if  you  will 
use  your  care  and  judgment  in  putting  an  end,  as  well  as 


THE    RADICAL.  177 

you  can,  to  this  Sproxton  affair;   else  it  may  turn  out  an 
ugly  business." 

"Excuse  me,  sir;  I  must  beg  you  to  look  at  the  matter 
a  little  more  closely.  You  will  see  that  it  is  impossible  to 
take  a  single  step  backward  at  Sproxton.  It  was  a  matter 
of  necessity  to  get  the  Sproxton  men;  else  I  know  to  a 
certainty  the  other  side  would  have  laid  hold  of  them  first, 
and  now  I've  undermined  Garstin's  people.  They'll  use 
their  authority,  and  give  a  little  shabby  treating,  but  I've 
taken  all  the  wind  out  of  their  sails.  But  if,  by  your 
orders,  I  or  Mr.  Jermyn  here  were  to  break  promise  with 
the  honest  fellows,  and  offend  Chubb  the  publican,  what 
would  come  of  it?  Chubb  woukl  leave  no  stone  unturned 
against  you,  sir;  he  would  egg  on  his  customers  against 
you;  the  colliers  and  navvies  would  be  at  the  nomination 
and  at  the  election  all  the  same,  or  rather  not  all  the  same, 
for  they  would  be  there  against  us;  and  instead  of  hustling 
people  good-humoredly  by  way  of  a  joke,  and  counterbal- 
ancing Debarry's  cheers,  they'd  help  to  kick  the  cheering 
and  voting  out  of  our  men,  and  instead  of  being,  let  us 
say,  half-a-dozen  ahead  of  Garstiu,  you'd  be  half-a-dozen 
behind  him,  that's  all.  I  speak  plain  English  to  you,  Mr. 
Transome,  though  I've  the  highest  respect  for  you  as  a 
gentleman  of  first-rate  talents  and  position.  But,  sir,  to 
judge  of  these  things  a  man  must  know  the  English  voter 
and  the  English  publican;  and  it  would  be  a  poor  tale 
indeed  " — here  Mr.  Johnson's  mouth  took  an  expression  at 
once  bitter  and  pathetic — "  that  a  gentleman  like  you,  to 
say  nothing  of  the  good  of  the  country,  should  have  gone 
to  the  expense  and  trouble  of  a  canvass  for  nothing  but  to 
find  himself  out  of  Parliament  at  the  end  of  it.  I've  seen 
it  again  and  again;  it  looks  bad  in  the  cleverest  man  to 
have  to  sing  small." 

Mr.  Johnson's  argument  was  not  the  less  stringent 
because  his  idioms  were  vulgar.  It  recpiires  a  conviction 
and  resolution  amounting  to  heroism  not  to  wince  at 
phrases  that  class  our  foresliadowed  endurance  among 
those  common  and  ignominious  troubles  which  the  world  is 
more  likely  to  sneer  at  than  to  pity.  Harold  remained  a 
few  minutes  in" angry  silence  looking  at  the  floor,  with  one 
hand  on  his  knee  and  the  other  on  his  hat,  as  if  he  were 
preparing  to  start  up. 

"As  to  undoing  anything  tiiat's  been  done  down  there," 
said  Johnson,  throwing  in  this  observation  as  something 
into  the  bargain,  "  I  must  wash  my  hands  of  it,  sii'.     I 

12 


178  FELIX   HOLT, 

couldn't  work  knowingly  against  your  interest.  And  that 
youug  man  who  is  just  gone  out, — you  don't  believe  that 
lie  need  be  listened  to,  I  hope?  Chubb,  the  publican, 
hates  him.  Chubb  would  guess  he  was  at  the  bottom  of 
your  having  the  treating  stopped,  and  he'd  set  lialf-a-dozen 
of  the  colliers  to  duck  him  in  the  canal,  or  break  his  head 
by  mistake.  I'm  an  experienced  man,  sir.  I  hope  I've 
put  it  clear  enough." 

"Certainly,  the  exposition  befits  the  subject,"  said  Har- 
old, scornfully,  his  dislike  of  the  man  Johnson's  person- 
ality being  stimulated  by  causes  which  Jerniyn  more  than 
conjectured.  "It's  a  damned,  unpleasant,  ravelled  busi- 
ness that  you  and  Mr.  Jermyn  have  knit  up  between  you. 
I've  no  more  to  say." 

"  Then,  sir,  if  you've  no  more  commands,  I  don't  wish 
to  intrude.  I  shall  wish  you  good-morning,  sir,"  said 
Johnson,  passing  out  quickly. 

Harold  knew  that  he  was  indulging  his  temper,  and  he 
would  probably  have  restrained  it  as  a  foolish  move  if  he 
had  thought  there  was  great  danger  in  it.  But  he  was 
beginning  to  drop  much  of  his  caution  and  self-mastery 
where  Jermyn  was  concerned,  under  the  growing  convic- 
tion that  the  attorney  had  very  strong  reasons  for  being 
afraid  of  him;  reasons  which  would  onl}'  be  reinforced  by 
any  action  hostile  to  the  Transome  interest.  As  for  a 
sneak  like  this  Johnson,  a  gentleman  had  to  pay  him,  not 
to  please  him.  Harold  had  smiles  at  command  m  the 
right  place,  but  he  was  not  going  to  smile  when  it  was 
neither  necessary  nor  agreeable.  He  was  one  of  those 
good-humored,  yet  energetic  men,  Avho  have  the  gift  of 
anger,  hatred,  and  scorn  upon  occasion,  though  they  are 
too  healthy  and  self-contented  for  such  feelings  to  get 
generated  in  them  without  external  occasion.  And  in 
relation  to  Jermyn  the  gift  was  coming  into  fine  exercise. 

"A — pardon  me,  Mr.  Harold,"  said  Jermyn,  speaking 
as  soon  as  Johnson  went  out,  "but  I  am  sorry — a — you 
should  behave  disobligingly  to  a  man  who  has  it  in  his 
power  to  do  much  service — who,  in  fact,  holds  many 
threads  in  his  hands.  I  admit  that — a — nemo  morialiiim 
omnibus  horis  sa2nt,  as  we  say — a " 

"Speak  for  yourself,"  said  Harold.  "I  don't  talk  in 
tags  of  Latin,  which  might  be  learned  by  a  school-master's 
footboy.  I  find  the  King's  English  expresses  my  meaning 
better." 

"  In  the  King's  English,  then,"  said  Jermyn,  who  could 


THE  RADICAL.  l*i  .1 

be  idiomatic  enough  when  he  was  stung,  ''a  candidate 
should  keep  his  kicks  till  he's  a  member." 

"  Oh,  I  suppose  Johnson  will  bear  a  kick  if  you  bid  him. 
You're  his  principal,  I  believe." 

"  Certainly,  thus  far — ii — he  is  my  London  agent  But 
he  is  a  man  of  substance,  and " 

"  I  shall  know  what  he  is  if  it's  necessary,  I  dai'e  sav. 
But  I  must  jump  into  the  carriage  again.  I've  no  time  to 
lose;  I  must  go  to  Hawkins  at  the  factory.     Will  vou  go?  " 

When  Harold  was  gone,  Jermyn's  handsome  face  gath- 
ered blackness.  He  hardly  ever  wore  his  worst  expression 
in  the  presence  of  others,  and  but  seldom  when  he  was 
alone,  for  he  was  not  given  to  believe  that  any  game  would 
ultimately  go  against  him.  His  luck  had  been  good.  Xew 
conditions  might  always  turn  up  to  give  him  new  chances; 
and  if  affairs  threatened  to  come  to  an  extremity  between 
Harold  and  himself,  he  trusted  to  fincjing  some  sure 
resource. 

"  He  means  to  see  to  the  bottom  of  everything  if  he  can, 
that's  quite  plain,"  said  Jermyn  to  liimselL  "I  believe 
he  has  been  getting  another  opinion;  he  has  some  new  liglit 
about  those  annuities  on  the  estate  that  are  held  in  John- 
son's name.  He  has  inherited  a  deuced  faculty  for  busi- 
ness— there's  no  denying  that.  But  I  shall  beg  leave  to  tell 
him  that  I've  propped  up  the  family.  I  don't  know  wher>,i 
they  would  have  been  without  me;  and  if  it  conies  to  b;i.]- 
ancing,  I  know  into  which  scale  the  gratitude  ought  to  go. 
Kot  that  he's  likely  to  feel  any — but  he  can  feel  somethinir 
else;  and  if  he  makes  signs  of  setting  the  dogs  on  me,  I 
shall  make  him  feel  it.  The  people  named  Transome  owe 
me  a  good  deal  more  than  I  owe  them." 

In  this  way  Mr.  Jermyn  inwardly  appealed  against  an 
unjust  construction  which  he  foresaw  that  his  old  acquaint- 
ance the  law  might  put  on  certain  items  in  his  history. 

I  have  known  persons  who  hav«-  been  suspected  of  under- 
valuing gratitude,  and  excluding  it  from  the  list  of  virt- 
ues; but  on  closer  observation  it  has  been  seen  that,  if 
they  have  never  felt  grateful,  it  has  been  for  want  of  an 
opportunity;  and  that,  far  from  desj^ising  gratitude,  thev 
regard  it  as  the  virtue  most  of  all  incumbent  —  on  others 
toward  them. 


180  FELIX   HOLT, 


CHAPTEK    XYIII. 

The  little,  nameless,  unremembered  acts 
Of  kindness  and  of  love. 

Wordsworth:  Tintem  AM>ey. 

Jeemyx  did  not  forget  to  pay  his  visit  to  the  minister  in 
Malthouse  Yard  that  evening.  The  mingled  irritation, 
dread  and  defiance  which  he  was  feeling  toward  Harold 
Transonic  in  the  middle  of  the  day  depended  on  too  many 
and  far-stretching  causes  to  be  dissipated  by  eight  o'clock; 
but  when  he  left  Mr.  Lyon's  house  he  was  in  a  state  of 
comparative  triumph  in  the  belief  that  he,  and  he  alone, 
was  now  in  possession  of  facts  which,  once  grouped 
together,  made  a  secret  that  gave  him  new  power  over 
Harold. 

Mr.  Lyon,  in  his  need  for  help  from  one  who  had  that 
Avisdom  of  the  serpent  which,  he  argued,  is  not  forbidden, 
but  is  only  of  hard  acquirement  to  dovelike  innocence,  had 
been  gradually  led  to  pour  out  to  the  attorney  all  the 
reasons  which  made  him  desire  to  know  the  truth  about 
the  man  who  called  himself  Maurice  Christian:  he  had 
shown  all  the  precious  relics,  the  locket,  the  letters,  and 
the  marriage  certificate.  And  Jermyn  had  comforted  him 
by  confidently  promising  to  ascertain,  without  scandal 
or  premature  betrayals,  whether  this  man  were  really 
Annette's  husband,  Maurice  Christian  Bycliffe. 

Jermyn  was  not  rash  in  making  this  promise,  since  he 
had  excellent  reasons  for  believing  that  he  had  already 
come  to  a  true  conclusion  on  the  subject.  But  he  wished 
both  to  know  a  little  more  of  this  man  himself,  and  to 
keep  Mr.  Lyon  in  ignorance — not  a  difficult  j)recaution — 
in  an  affair  which  it  cost  the  minister  so  much  pain  to 
speak  of.  An  easy  opportunity  of  getting  an  interview 
with  Christian  was  sure  to  offer  itself  before  long — might 
even  offer  itself  to-morrow.  Jermyn  had  seen  him  more 
than  once,  though  hitherto  without  any  reason  for  observ- 
ing him  with  interest;  he  had  heard  that  Philip  Debarry's 
courier  was  often  busy  in  the  town,  and  it  seemed 
specially  likely  that  he  would  be  seen  there  when  the 
Market  was  to  be  agitated  by  politics,  and  the  new  candiv 
date  was  to  show  his  paces. 

The  world  of  which  Treby  Magna  was  the  centre  was, 
naturally,  curious  to  see  the  young  Transome,  who  had 
come  from   the  East,  was  as  rich   as   a  Jew,  and  called 


THE   RADICAL.  181 

himself  a  Radical — characteristics  all  equally  vague  in 
the  minds  of  various  excellent  ratepayers,  who  drove 
to  market  in  their  taxed  carts  or  in  their  hereditary 
gigs.  Places  at  convenient  windows  had  been  secured 
beforehand  for  a  few  best  bonnets;  but,  in  general,  a  Rad- 
ical candidate  excited  no  ardent  feminine  partisanship,  even 
among  the  Dissenters  in  Treby,  if  they  were  of  the  pros- 
perous and  long-resident  class.  Some  chapel-going  ladies 
were  fond  of  remembering  that  ''their  family  had  been 
Church";  others  objected  to  politics  altogether  as  having 
spoiled  old  neighborliness,  and  sundered  friends  who  had 
kindred  views  as  to  cowslip  Avine  and  Michaelmas  cleaning; 
others,  of  the  melancholy  sort,  said  it  would  be  well  If 
people  Avould  think  less  of  reforming  Parliament  and  more 
of  pleasing  God.  Irreproachable  Dissenting  matrons, 
like  Mrs.  Muscat,  whose  youth  had  been  passed  in  a  short- 
waisted  bodice  and  tight  skirt,  had  never  been  animated 
by  the  struggle  for  liberty,  and  had  a  timid  suspicion  that 
religion  was  desecrated  by  being  applied  to  the  tilings  of 
this  world.  Since  Mr,  Lyon  had  been  in  Malthouse  Yard 
there  had  been  far  too  much  mixing  up  of  j)olitics  with 
religion;  but,  at  any  rate,  these  ladies  had  never  yet  been 
to  hear  speechifying  in  the  market-place,  and  they  were 
not  going  to  begin  that  practice. 

Esther,  however,  had  heard  some  of  her  feminine 
acquaintances  say  that  they  intended  to  sit  at  the  drug- 
gist's upper  window,  and  she  was  inclined  to  ask  her  father 
if  he  could  think  of  a  suitable  place  where  she  also  might 
see  and  hear.  Two  inconsistent  motives  urged  her.  She 
knew  that  Felix  cared  earnestly  for  all  public  questions, 
and  she  supposed  that  he  held  it  one  of  her  deficiencies 
not  to  care  about  them:  well,  she  would  try  to  learn  the 
secret  of  this  ardor,  which  was  so  strong  in  him  that  it 
animated  what  she  thought  the  dullest  form  of  life.  She 
was  not  too  stupid  to  find  it  out.  But  this  self-correcting 
motive  was  presently  displaced  by  a  motive  of  a  different 
sort.  It  had  been  a  pleasant  variety  in  her  monotonous 
days  to  see  a  man  like  Harold  Transome,  with  a  distin- 
guished appearance  and  polished  manners,  and  she  vv^ould 
like  to  see  liim  again:  he  suggested  to  her  that  brighter 
and  more  luxurious  life  on  which  her  imagination  dwelt 
without  the  painful  effort  it  required  to  conceive  the  men- 
tal condition  which  would  place  her  in  complete  sympathy 
with  Felix  Holt.  It  was  this  less  unaccustomed  prompting 
of  which  she  was  chiefly  conscious  when  she  awaited  her 


L82  FELIX   HOLT, 

father's  coming  down  to  breakfast.     Why,  indeed,  should 
she  trouble  herself  so  much  about  Felix? 

Mr.  Lyon,  more  serene  now  that  he  had  unbosomed  his 
anxieties  and  obtained  a  promise  of  help,  was  already 
swimming  so  happily  in  the  deep  water  of  polemics  in 
expectation  of  Philip  Debarry's  answer  to  his  challenge, 
that,  in  the  occupation  of  making  a  few  notes  lest  certain 
felicitous  insjiirations  should  be  wasted,  he  had  forgotten 
to  come  down  to  breakfast.  Esther,  suspecting  his 
abstraction,  went  up  to  his  study,  and  found  him  at  his 
desk  looking  up  with  wonder  at  her  interruption. 

''Come,  father,  you  have  forgotten  your  breakfast." 

'"It  is  true,  child,  I  will  come,"  he  said,  lingering  to 
make  some  final  strokes. 

"Oh,  you  naughty  father!^'  said  Esther,  as  he  got  up 
from  his  chair,  ''your  coat-collar  is  twisted,  your  waistcoat 
is  buttoned  all  wrong,  and  you  have  not  brushed  your 
hair.  Sit  down  and  let  me  brush  it  again  as  I  did  yes- 
terday." 

He  sat  down  obediently,  while  Esther  took  a  towel, 
which  she  threw  over  his  shoulders,  and  then  brushed 
the  thick,  long  fringe  of  soft  auburn  hair.  This  very 
trifling  act,  which  she  had  brought  herself  to  for  the  first 
time  yesterday,  meant  a  great  deal  in  Esther's  little 
history.  It  had  been  her  habit  to  leave  the  mending  of 
her  father's  clothes  to  Lyddy;  she  had  not  liked  even  to 
touch  his  cloth  garments;  still  less  had  it  seemed  a  thing 
she  would  willingly  undertake  to  correct  his  toilette,  and 
use  a  brush  for  him.  But  having  once  done  this,  under 
her  new  sense  of  faulty  omission,  the  affectionateness  that 
was  in  iier  flowed  so  pleasantly,  as  she  saw  how  much  her 
father  was  moved  by  what  he  thought  a  great  act  of  ten- 
derness, that  she  quite  longed  to  repeat  it.  This  morning, 
as  he  sat  under  her  hands,  his  face  had  such  a  calm  delight 
in  it  that  she  could  not  help  kissing  the  top  of  his  bald 
head;  and  afterward,  when  they  were  seated  at  breakfast, 
she  said,  merrily — 

"Father,  I  shall  make  a  joe/^7  maitre  of  you  by-and-by; 
your  hair  looks  so  jDretty  and  silken  when  it  is  well 
brushed." 

"Nay,  child,  I  trust  that  while  I  would  willingly  depart 
from  my  evil  habit  of  a  somewhat  slovenly  forgetfulness  in 
my  attire,  I  shall  never  arrive  at  the  opposite  extreme. 
For  though  there  is  that  in  apparel  which  pleases  the  eye, 
and  I  deny  net  that  your  neat  gown  and  the  color  thereof 


THE   KADICAL.  183 

— which  is  that  of  certain  little  flowers  that  spread  them- 
selves in  the  hedgerows,  and  make  a  blueness  there  as  of 
the  sky  when  it  is  deepened  in  the  water — I  deny  not,  I 
say,  tliat  these  minor  strivings  after  a  perfection  which  is, 
as  it  were,  an  irrecoverable  yet  haunting  memory,  are  a 
good  in  their  proportion.  Nevertheless,  the  brevity  of  our 
life,  and  the  hurry  and  crush  of  the  great  battle  with  error 
and  sin,  often  oblige  us  to  an  advised  neglect  of  what  is 
less  momentous.  This,  I  conceive,  is  the  principle  on 
which  my  friend  Felix  Holt  acts;  and  I  cannot  but  think 
the  light  comes  from  the  true  fount,  though  it  shines 
through  obstructions." 

"  You  have  not  seen  Mr.  Holt  since  Sunday,  have  you, 
father?" 

"  Yes;  he  was  here  yesterday.  He  sought  Mr.  Tran- 
sonic, having  a  matter  of  some  importance  to  speak  upon 
with  him.  And  I  saw  him  afterward  in  the  street,  when 
he  agreed  that  I  should  call  for  him  this  morning  before  I 
go  into  the  market-place.  He  will  have  it,"  Mr.  Lyon 
went  on,  smiling,  ''that  I  must  not  walk  about  in  the 
crowd  without  him  to  act  as  my  special  constable." 

Esther  felt  vexed  with  herself  that  her  heart  was  sud- 
denly beating  with  unusual  quickness,  and  that  her  last 
resohition  not  to  trouble  herself  about  what  Felix  thought 
had  transformed  itself  with  magic  swiftness  into  mortifi- 
cation that  he  evidently  avoided  coming  to  the  house 
when  she  was  there,  though  he  used  to  come  on  the  slight- 
est occasion.  He  knew  that  she  was  always  at  home  until 
the  afternoon  on  market-days;  that  was  the  reason  why  he 
Avould  not  call  for  her  father.  Of  course  it  was  because  he 
attributed  such  littleness  to  her  that  he  supposed  she  would 
retain  nothing  else  than  a  feeling  of  offense  toward  him 
for  what  he  had  said  to  her.  Such  distrust  of  any  good 
in  otliers,  such  arrogance  of  immeasurable  superiority,  was 
extremely  ungenerous.      But  presently  she  said — 

•'  I  should  have  liked  to  hear  Mr.  Transome  speak,  bitt  I 
suppose  it  is  too  late  to  get  a  jDlace  now." 

"  I  am  not  sure;  I  would  fain  have  you  go  if  you  desire 
it,  my  dear,"  said  Mr.  Lyon,  who  could  not  bear  to  deny 
Esther  any  lawful  wish.  "Walk  with  me  to  Mistress 
Holt's,  and  we  will  learn  from  Felix,  who  will  doubtless 
already  have  been  out,  whether  he  could  lead  you  in  safety 
to  Friend  Lambert's." 

Esther  was  glad  of  the  proposal,  because,  if  it  answered 
no  other  purpose,   it  would  be  an  easy  way  of  obliging 


184  FELIX   HOLT, 

Felix  to  see  her,  and  of  showing  him  that  it  was  not  she 
who  cherished  offense.  But  when,  later  in  the  morning, 
she  was  walking  toward  Mrs.  Holt^s  with  her  father,  they 
met  Mr.  Jermyn,  who  stopped  them  to  ask,  in  his  most 
affable  manner,  whether  Miss  I  yon  intended  to  hear  the 
candidate,  and  M^hether  she  had  secured  a  suitable  place. 
And  he  ended  by  insisting  that  his  daughters,  who  were 
presently  coming  in  an  open  carriage,  should  call  for  her, 
if  she  would  permit  them.  It  was  impossible  to  refuse 
this  civility,  and  Esther  turned  back  to  await  the  carriage, 
pleased  with  the  certainty  of  hearing  and  seeing,  yet  sorry 
to  miss  Felix.  There  was  another  day  for  her  to  think 
of  him  with  unsatisfied  resentment,  mixed  with  some  long- 
ings for  a  better  understanding;  and  in  our  spring-time 
every  day  has  its  hidden  growths  in  the  mind,  as  it  has  in 
the  earth  when  the  little  folded  blades  are  getting  ready  to 
pierce  the  ground. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

Consistency  ?— I  never  changed  my  mind, 
Which  is,  and  always  was,  to  live  at  ease. 

It  was  only  in  the  time  of  the  summer  fairs  that  the  mar- 
ket-place had  ever  looked  more  animated  than  it  did  under 
that  autumn  midday  sun.  There  were  plenty  of  blue 
cockades  and  streamers,  faces  at  all  the  windows,  and  a 
crushing  buzzing  crowd,  urging  each  other  backward  and 
forward  round  the  small  hustings  in  front  of  the  Eam  Inn, 
which  showed  its  more  plebeian  sign  at  right  angles  with 
the  venerable  Marquis  of  Granby.  Sometimes  there  were 
scornful  shouts,  sometimes  a  rolling  cascade  of  cheers, 
sometimes  the  shriek  of  a  penny  whistle;  but  above  all 
these  fitful  and  feeble  sounds,  the  fine  old  church-tower, 
which  looked  down  from  above  the  trees  on  the  other  side 
of  the  narrow  stream,  sent  vibrating,  at  every  quarter,  the 
sonorous  tones  of  its  great  bell,  the  Good  Queen  Bess. 

Two  carriages,  with  blue  ribbons  on  the  harness,  were 
conspicuous  near  the  hiistings.  One  was  Jermyn's,  filled 
with  the  brilliantly-attired  daughters,  accompanied  by 
Esther,  whose  quieter  dress  helped  to  mark  her  out  for 
attention  as  the  most  striking  of  the  group.  The  other 
was  Harold  Transome's;  but  in  this  there  was  no  lady — 


THE    EADICAL.  185 

only  the  olive-skinned  Dominic,  whose  acute  yet  mild  face 
was  brightened  by  the  occupation  of  amusing  little  Harry 
and  rescuing  from  his  tyrannies  a  King  Charles  puppy, 
with  big  eyes,  much  after  the  pattern  of  the  boy's. 

This  Trebian  crowd  did  not  count  for  much  in  the 
political  force  of  the  nation,  but  it  was  not  the  less  deter- 
mined as  to  lending  or  not  lending  its  ears.  No  man  was 
permitted  to  speak  from  the  platform  except  Harold  and 
his  uncle  Lingon,  though,  in  the  interval  of  expectation, 
several  Liberals  had  come  forward.  Among  these  ill- 
advised  persons  the  one  whose  attempt  met  the  most 
emphatic  resistance  was  Eufus  Lyon.  This  might  have 
been  taken  for  resentment  at  the  unreasonableness  of  the 
cloth,  that,  not  content  with  pulpits,  from  whence  to 
tyrannize  over  the  ears  of  meU;,  wishes  to  have  the  larger 
share  of  the  platforms;  but  it  was  not  so,  for  Mr.  Lingon 
was  heard  with  much  cheering,  and  would  have  been 
welcomed  again. 

The  rector  of  Little  Treby  had  been  a  favorite  in  the 
neighborhood  since  the  beginning  of  the  century.  A 
clergyman  thoroughly  unclerical  in  his  habits  had  a 
piquancy  about  him  wh.cli  made  him  a  sort  of  practical 
joke.  He  had  always  been  called  Jack  Lingon,  or  Parson 
Jack — sometimes,  in  older  and  less  serious  days,  even 
"Cock-fighting  Jack."  He  swore  a  little  when  the  point 
of  a  joke  seemed  to  demand  it,  and  was  fond  of  wearing  a 
colored  bandana  tied  loosely  over  his  cravat,  together  with 
large  brown  leather  leggings;  he  spoke  in  a  pithy  familiar 
way  that  people  could  understand,  and  had  none  of  that 
frigid  mincingness  calk/d  dignit}',  which  some  have  thought 
a  peculiar  clerical  disease.  In  fact,  he  was  "a,  charicter  " — 
something  cheerful  to  think  of,  not  entirely  out  of  connec- 
tion Avith  Sunday  and  sermons.  And  it  seemed  in  keeping 
that  he  should  have  turned  sharp  round  in  politics,  his 
opinions  being  only  part  of  the  excellent  joke  called  Parson 
Jack.  When  his  red  eagle  face  and  white  hair  were  seen 
on  the  platform,  the  Dissenters  hardly  cheered  this  ques- 
tionable Radical;  but  t?  make  amends,  all  the  Tory  farmers 
gave  him  a  friendly  "hurray."  "Let's  hear  what  old 
Jack  will  say  for  himself,"  was  the  predominant  feeling 
among  them;  "he'll  have  something  funny  to  say.  Til  bet 
a  penny." 

It  was  only  Lawyer  Labron's  3'oung  clerks  and  their 
hangers-on  who  were  sufficiently  dead  to  Trebian  tradi- 
tions to  assail  the  parson  with  various  sharp-edged  inter- 


186  FELIX   HOLT, 

jections,   such  as  broken  shells,  and   cries  of   "Cock-a- 
doodle-doo." 

"  Come  now,  my  lads,"  he  began,  in  his  full,  pompous, 
yet  jovial  tones,  thrusting  his  hands  into  the  stuffed-out 
pockets  of  his  greatcoat,  "I'll  tell  you  what;  I'm  a  parson, 
you  know;  I  ought  to  return  good  for  evil.  So  here  are 
some  good  nuts  for  you  to  crack  in  return  for  your  shells." 

Tliere  was  a  roar  of  laughter  and  cheering  as  he  threw 
handfuls  of  nuts  and  filberts  among  the  crowd. 

"Come  now,  you'll  say  I  used  to  be  a  Tory;  and 
some  of  you,  Avhose  faces  I  know  as  well  as  I  know  the 
head  of  my  own  crab-stick,  will  say  that's  why  I'm  a  good 
fellow.  But  now  I'll  tell  you  something  else.  It's  for  that 
very  reason  —  that  I  used  to  be  a  Tory,  and  am  a  good  fel- 
low— that  I  go  along  with  my  nephew  here,  who  is  a  thor- 
ough-going Liberal.  For  will  anybody  here  come  forward 
and  say,  'A  good  fellow  has  no  need  to  tack  about  and 
change  his  road '  ?  j^o,  there's  not  one  of  you  such  a  Tom- 
noddy. What's  good  for  one  time  is  bad  for  another.  If 
anybody  contradicts  that,  ask  him  to  eat  pickled  pork 
when  he's  thirsty,  and  to  bathe  in  the  Lapp  there  when  the 
spikes  of  ice  are  shooting.  And  that's  the  reason  why  the 
men  who  are  the  best  Liberals  now  are  the  very  men  who 
used  to  be  the  best  Tories.  There  isn't  a  nastier  horse 
than  3^our  horse  that'll  jib  and  back  and  turn  round  when 
there  is  but  one  road  for  him  to  go,  and  that's  the  road 
before  him. 

"  And  my  nephew  here — he  comes  of  a  Tory  breed,  you 
know — I'll  answer  for  the  Lingons.  In  the  old  Tory  times 
there  was  never  a  pup  belonged  to  a  Lingon  but  would  howl 
if  a  Whig  came  near  him.  The  Lingon  blood  is  good, 
rich  old  Tory  blood — like  good  rich  milk — and  that's  why, 
when  the  right  time  comes,  it  throws  up  a  Liberal  cream. 
The  best  sort  of  Tory  turns  to  the  best  sort  of  Eadical. 
There's  plenty  of  Radical  scum — I  say,  beware  of  .the 
scum,  and  look  out  for  the  cream.  And  here's  my 
nephew — some  of  the  cream,  if  there  is  any:  none  of  your 
Whigs,  none  of  your  painted  water  that  looks  as  if  it  ran, 
and  it's  standing  still  all  the  while;  none  of  your  spinning- 
jenny  fellows.  A  gentleman;  but  up  to  all  sorts  of  busi- 
ness. I'm  no  fool  myself;  I'm  forced  to  wink  a  good  deal, 
for  fear  of  seeing  too  much,  for  a  neighborly  man  must  let 
himself  be  cheated  a  little.  But  though  I've  never  been 
out  of  my  own  country,  I  know  less  about  it  than  my 
nep'Aew  does.      You  may  tell  what  he  is,  and  only  look  at 


THE   RADICAL.  187 

him.  There's  one  sort  of  fellow  sees  nothing  but  the  end 
of  his  own  nose,  and  anotlier  sort  that  sees  nothing  but  the 
hinder  side  of  the  moon;  but  my  nephew  Harold  is  of 
another  sort;  he  sees  everything  that's  at  hitting  distance, 
and  he's  not  one  to  miss  his  mark.  A  good-looking  man 
in  his  prime!  Not  a  greenhorn;  not  a  shriveled  old  fellow, 
who'll  come  to  speak  to  you  and  find  he's  left  his  teeth  at 
home  by  mistake.  Harold  Transome  will  do  you  credit;  if 
anybody  says  the  Radicals  are  a  set  of  sneaks,  Brummagem 
iialfpennies,  scamps  who  want  to  play  pitch-and-toss  with 
the  property  of  the  country,  you  can  say,  '  Look  at  the 
member  for  North  Loamshire!'  And  mind  what  you'll 
hear  him  say;  he'll  go  in  for  making  everything  right  — 
Poor-laws  and  Charities  and  Church  —  he  wants  to  reform 
'em  all.  Perhaps  you'll  say,  '  There's  that  Parson  Lingon 
talking  about  Church  Eeform  —  why,  he  belongs  to  the 
Church  himself — he  wants  reforming  too.'  Well,  well, 
wait  a  bit,  and  you'll  hear  by-and-by  that  old  Parson  Lin- 
gon is  reformed — shoots  no  more,  cracks  his  joke  no  more, 
luis  drunk  liis  last  bottle:  the  dogs,  the  old  pointers,  will  be 
sorry;  but  you'll  hear  that  the  Parson  at  Little  Treby  is  a  new 
man.  That's  what  Church  Reform  is  sure  to  come  to  before 
long.  So  now  here  are  some  more  nuts  for  you,  lads,  and  I 
leave  you  to  listen  to  your  candidate.  Here  he  is — 
give  him  a  good  hurray;  wave  your  hats,  and  I'll  begin. 
Hurray ! " 

Harold  had  not  been  quite  confident  beforehand  as  to 
the  good  effect  of  his  uncle's  introduction;  but  he  was 
soon  reassured.  There  was  no  acrid  partisanship  among 
the  old-fashioned  Tories  who  mustered  strong  about  the 
Marquis  of  Granby,  and  Parson  Jack  had  put  them  in  a 
good  humor.  Harold's  only  interruption  came  from  his 
own  party.  The  oratorical  clerk  at  the  Factory,  acting  as 
the  tribune  of  the  Dissenting  interest,  and  feeling  bound 
to  put  questions,  might  have  been  troublesome;  but  his 
voice  being  unpleasantly  sharp,  while  Harold's  was  full 
and  penetrating,  the  questioning  was  cried  down.  Har- 
old's speech  *'did":.  it  was  not  of  the  glib-nonsensical 
sort,  not  ponderous,  not  hesitating — which  is  as  much  as 
to  say,  that  it  was  remarkable  among  British  sjoeeches. 
Read  in  print  the  next  da}',  perhaps  it  would  be  neither 
pregnant  nor  conclusive,  which  is  saying  no  more  than 
that  its  excellence  was  not  of  an  abnormal  kind,  but  such 
as  is  usually  found  in  the  best  efforts  of  eloquent  candi- 


188  FELIX  HOLT, 

dates.     Accordingly,  the  applause  drowned  the  opposition, 
and  content  predominated. 

But,  perhaps,  the  moment  of  most  diffusive  pleasure 
from  public  speaking  is  that  in  which  the  speech  ceases 
and  the  audience  can  turn  to  commenting  on  it.  The  one 
speech,  sometimes  uttered  under  great  responsibility  as  to 
missiles  and  other  consequences,  has  given  a  text  to  twenty 
speakers  who  are  under  no  responsibility.  Even  in  the 
days  of  dueling  a  man  was  not  challenged  for  being  a  bore, 
nor  does  this  quality  apparently  hinder  him  from  being 
much  invited  to  dinner,  which  is  the  great  index  of  social 
responsibility  in  a  less  barbarous  age. 

Certainly  the  crowd  in  the  market-place  seemed  to 
experience  this  culminating  enjoyment  when  the  si)eaking 
on  the  platform  in  front  of  the  Ram  had  ceased,  and 
there  were  no  less  than  three  orators  holding  forth  from  the 
elevation  of  chance  vehicles,  not  at  all  to  the  prejudice  of 
the  talking  among  those  who  were  on  a  level  with  their 
neighbors.  There  was  little  ill-humor  among  the  listeners, 
for  Queen  Bess  was  striking  tlie  last  quarter  before  two, 
and  a  savory  smell  from  the  inn  kitchens  inspired  them 
with  an  agreeable  consciousness  that  the  speakers  were 
helping  to  trifle  away  the  brief  time  before  dinner. 

Two  or  three  of  Harold^s  committee  had  lingered  talk- 
ing to  each  other  on  the  platform,  instead  of  re-entering; 
and  ^crmyn,  after  coming  out  to  speak  to  one  of  them, 
had  turned  to  the  corner  near  which  the  carriages  were 
standing,  that  he  might  tell  the'  Transomes'  coachman  to 
drive  round  to  the  side  door  and  signal  to  his  own  coach- 
man to  follow.  But  a  dialogue  which  was  going  on  below 
induced  him  to  pause,  and  instead  of  giving  the  order,  to 
assume  the  air  of  a  careless  gazer.  Christian,  whom  the 
attorney  had  already  observed  looking  out  of  a  Avindow  at 
tlie  Marquis  of  Granby,  was  talking  to  Dominic.  The 
meeting  appeared  to  be  one  of  new  recognition,  for  Chris- 
tian was  saying — 

"You've  not  got  gray,  as  I  have,  Mr.  Lenoni;  you're 
not  a  day  older  for  the  sixteen  years.  But  no  wonder  you 
didn't  know  me;  I'm  bleached  like  a  dried  bone." 

"  Not  so.  It  is  true  I  was  confused  a  meenute — I  could 
put  your  face  nowhere;  but,  after  that,  Naples  came 
behind  it,  and  I  said,  Mr.  Creestian.  And  so  you  reside 
at  the  Manor,  and  I  am  at  Transome  Court." 

"Ah!  it's  a  thousand  pities  you're  not  on  our  side,  else 
we  mignt  have  dined  together  at  the  Marquis,"  said  Chris- 


THE    KADICAL.  189 

tian.     *'Eh,  could  you  manage  it?"  he  added,  languidly, 
knowing  there  was  no  chance  of  a  yes. 

''\N"o — much  obliged — couldn't  leave  the  leetle  boy. 
Ahi!  Arry,  Arry,  pinch  not  poor  Moro." 

While  Dominic  was  answering,  Christian  had  stared 
about  him,  as  his  manner  was  when  lie  was  being  spoken  to, 
and  had  had  his  eyes  arrested  by  Esther,  who  was  leaning 
forward  to  look  at  Mr.  Harold  Transome's  extraordinary 
little  gypsy  of  a  son.  But,  happening  to  meet  Christian's 
stare,  she  felt  annoyed,  drew  back,  and  turned  away  her 
head,  coloring. 

''Who  are  those  ladies?"  said  Christian,  in  a  low  tone, 
to  Dominic,  as  if  he  had  been  startled  into  a  sudden  wish 
for  this  information. 

"  They  are  Meester  Jermyn's  daughters,"  said  Dominic, 
who  knew  nothing  either  of  the  lawyer's  family  or  of 
Esther. 

Christian  looked  puzzled  a  moment  or  two,  and  was 
silent. 

"Oh,  well — cm  revoir,^'  he  said,  kissing  the  tips  of  his 
fingers  as  the  coachman,  having  had  Jermyn's  order,  began 
to  urge  on  the  horses. 

''Does  he  see  some  likeness  in  the  girl?"  thought 
Jermyu,  as  he  turned  away.  "I  wish  I  hadn't  invited 
her  to  come  in  the  carriage,  as  it  happens." 


CHAPTER   XX. 


"  Good  earthenware  pitchers,  sir !— of  an  excellent  quaint  pattern  and 
sober  color." 

The  market  dinner  at  "the  Marquis"  was  in  higji  repute 
in  Treby  and  its  neighborhood.  The  frequenters  of  this 
three-aiid-sixpenny  ordinary  liked  to  allude  to  it,  as  men 
allude  to  anything  which  implies  that  they  move  in  good 
society,  and  habitually  converse  with  those  who  are  in  the 
secret^  of  the  highest  affairs.  The  guests  were  not  only 
such  rural  residents  as  had  driven  to  market,  but  some  of 
the  most  substantial  townsmen,  who  had  always  assured 
their  wives  that  business  required  this  weekly  sacrifice  of 
domestic  pleasure.  The  poorer  farmers,  who  put  up  at 
the  Ram  or  the  Seven  Stars,  where  there  was  no  fisli,  felt 
their  disadvantage,  bearing  it  modestly  or  bitterly,  as  the 


190  FELIX    HOLT, 

case  iniglit  be;  and  althongli  the  Marquis  was  a  Tory- 
house,  devoted  to  Debarry,  it  was  too  much  to  expect  that 
such  tenants  of  the  Transomes  as  had  always  been  used  to 
dine  there,  should  consent  to  eat  a  worse  dinner,  and  sit 
with  worse  company,  because  they  suddenly  found  them- 
selves under  a  Radical  landlord,  opposed  the  political 
party  known  as  Sir  Maxim's.  Hence  the  recent  political 
divisions  had  not  reduced  the  handsome  length  of  the 
table  at  the  Marquis;  and  the  many  gradations  of  dignity — 
from  Mr.  Wace,  the  brewer,  to  the  rich  butcher  from  Leek 
Malton,  who  always  modestly  took  tlie  lowest  seat,  though 
Avithout  the  reward  of  being  asked  to  come  up  higher — 
had  not  been  abbreviated  by  any  secessions. 

To-day  there  was  an  extra  table  spread  for  expected 
supernumeraries,  and  it  was  at  this  that  Christian  took 
his  place  with  some  of  the  younger  farmers,  who  had 
almost  a  sense  of  dissipation  in  talking  to  a  man  of  his 
questionable  station  and  unknown  experience.  The  pro- 
vision was  especially  liberal,  and  on  the  whole  the  presence 
of  a  minority  destined  to  vote  for  Transome  was  a  ground 
for  joking,  which  added  to  the  good  humor  of  the  chief 
talkers.  A  respectable  old  acquaintance  turned  Radical 
rather  against  his  will,  was  rallied  with  even  greater  gusto 
than  if  his  wife  had  had  twins  twice  over.  The  best  Tre- 
bian  Tories  were  far  too  sweet-blooded  to  turn  against 
such  old  friends,  and  to  make  no  distinction  between  them 
and  the  Radical,  Dissenting,  Papistical,  Deistical  set  with 
whom  they  never  dined,  and  jDrobably  never  saw  except  in 
their  imagination.  But  the  talk  was  necessarily  in  abey- 
ance until  the  more  serious  business  of  dinner  was  ended, 
and  the  wine,  spirits,  and  tobacco  raised  mere  satisfaction 
into  beatitude. 

Among  the  frequent  though  not  regular  guests,  whom 
every  one  was  glad  to  see,  was  Mr.  Nolan,  the  retired 
London  hosier,  a  wiry  old  gentleman  past  seventy,  whose 
square,  tight  forehead,  with  its  rigid  hedge  ot  gray  hair, 
whose  bushy  eyebrows,  sharp  dark  eyes,  and  remarkable 
hooked  nose,  gave  a  handsome  distinction  to  his  face  in 
the  midst  of  rural  physiognomies.  He  had  married  a  Miss 
Pendrell  early  in  life,  when  he  was  a  poor  young  Londoner, 
and  tlie  match  had  been  thought  as  bad  as  ruin  by  her 
tamily;  but  fifteen  years  ago  he  had  had  the  satisfaction  of 
bringing  his  wife  to  settle  amongst  her  own  friends,  and 
of  being  received  -with  pride  as  a  brother-in-law,  retired 
from  business,  possessed  of  unknown  thousands,  and  of  a 


THE   RADICAL.  191 

most  agreeable  talent  for  anecdote  and  conversation  gener- 
ally. No  question  had  ever  been  raised  as  to  Mr.  Nolan's 
extraction  on  the  strength  of  his  hooked  nose,  or  of  his 
name  being  Barnch.  Hebrew  names  "ran"  in  the  best 
Saxon  families;  the  Bible  accounted  for  them;  and  no  one 
among  the  uplands  and  hedgerows  of  that  district  was  sus- 
pected of  having  an  oriental  origin  unless  he  carried  a 
peddler's  jewel-box.  Certainly,  whatever  genealogical 
research  might  have  discovered,  the  worthy  Baruch  Xolan 
was  so  free  from  any  distinctive  marks  of  religious  persua- 
sion— he  went  to  church  with  so  ordinary  an  irregularity, 
and  so  often  grumbled  at  the  sermon — that  there  was  no 
ground  for  classing  him  otherwise  than  with  good  Trebian 
Churchmen.  He  was  generally  regarded  as  a  good-looking 
old  gentleman,  and  a  certain  thin  eagerness  in  his  aspe-ct 
was  attributed  to  the  life  of  the  metropolis,  where  narrow 
space  had  the  same  soft  of  effect  on  men  as  on  thickly- 
planted  trees.  Mr  NoJ^n  always  ordered  his  pint  of  port, 
which,  after  he  had  sipjipd  it  a  little,  was  wont  to  animate 
his  recollections  of  thii"  Koyal  Famil}^  and  the  various 
ministries  which  had  been  contemporary  with  the  succes- 
sive stages  of  his  prosperity.  He  was  always  listened  to 
with  interest:  a  man  who  had  been  born  in  the  year  when 
good  old  King  George  came  to  the  throne — who  had  been 
acquainted  with  the  nude  leg  of  the  Prince  Eegent,  and 
hinted  at  private  reasons  for  believing  that  the  Princess 
Charlotte  ought  not  to  have  died — had  conversational  mat- 
ter as  special  to  his  auditors  as  Marco  Polo  could  have  had 
on  his  return  from  his  Asiatic  travel. 

"My  good  sir,"'  he  said  to  j\Ir.  Wace,  as  he  crossed  his 
knees  and  spread  his  silk  handkerchief  over  them,  "Tran- 
some  may  be  returned,  or  he  may  not  be  returned — that's 
a  question  for  North  Loamshire;  but  it  makes  little  differ- 
ence to  the  kingdom.  I  don't  want  to  say  things  which 
may  put  younger  men  out  of  spirits,  but  I  believe  this 
country  has  seen  its  best  days — I  do.  indeed." 

"  I  am  sorry  to  hear  it  from  one  of  your  experience,  Mr. 
Nolan,"  said  the  brewer,  a  large,  happy-looking  man. 
"  I'd  make  a  good  fight  myself  before  I'd  leave  a  worse 
world  for  my  boys  than  I've  found  for  myself.  There  isn't 
a  greater  pleasure  than  doing  a  bit  of  planting  and  improv- 
ing one's  buildings,  and  investing  one's  money  in  some 
pretty  acres  of  land,  when  it  turns  up  here  and  there — land 
you've  known  from  a  boy.  It's  a  nasty  thought  that  these 
^Radicals  are  to  turn  things  round  so  as  one  can  calculate  on 


192  FELIX  HOLT, 

nothing.  One  doesn't  like  it  for  one's  self,  and  one  doesn't 
like  it  for  one's  neighbors.  But  somehow,  I  believe  it  won't 
do:  if  we  can't  trust  the  Government  just  now,  there's  Prov- 
idence and  the  good  sense  of  the  country;  and  there's  a  right 
in  things — that's  what  I've  always  said — there's  a  right  in 
things.  The  heavy  end  will  getdownmost.  And  if  Church 
and  King,  and  every  man  being  sure  of  his  own,  are  things 
good  for  this  country,  there's  a  God  above  will  take  care  of 


em." 


"It  won't  do,  my  dear  sir,"  said  Mr.  Nolan — *Mt  won't 
do.  When  Peel  and  the  Duke  turned  round  about  the 
Catholics  in  '29,  I  saw  it  was  all  over  with  us.  We  could 
never  trust  ministers  any  more.  It  was  to  keep  off  a  rebell- 
ion, they  said;  but  I  say  it  was  to  keep  their  places. 
They're  monstrously  fond  of  place,  both  of  them — that  I 
know."  Here  Mr.  Nolan  changed  the  crossing  of  his  legs, 
and  gave  a  deep  cough,  conscious  of  having  made  a  point. 
Then  he  went  on — "What  we  want  is  a  king  with  a  good 
will  of  his  own.  If  we'd  had  that,  we  shouldn't  have  heard 
what  we've  heard  to-day;  Eeform  would  never  have  come 
to  this  pass.  When  our  good  old  King  George  III.  heard 
his  ministers  talking  about  Catholic  Emancipation,  he 
boxed  their  ears  all  around.  Ah,  jjoor  soul!  he  did  indeed, 
gentlcQien,"  ended  Mr.  Nolan,  shaken  by  a  deep  laugh 
of  admiration. 

"Well,  now,  that's  something  like  a  king,"  said  Mr. 
Orowder,  who  was  an  eager  listener. 

"It  was  uncivil,  though.  How  did  they  take  it?"  said 
Mr.  Timothy  Eose,  a  "gentleman  farmer"  from  Leek 
Malton,  against  whose  independent  position  nature  had 
provided  the  safeguard  of  a  spontaneous  servility.  His 
large  porcine  cheeks,  round  twinkling  eyes,  and  thumbs 
habitually  twirling,  expressed  a  concentrated  effort  not  to 
get  into  trouble,  and  to  speak  everybody  fair  except  when 
they  were  safely  out  of  hearing. 

"Take  it!  they'd  be  obliged  to  take  it,"  said  the  impetu- 
ous young  Joyce,  a  farmer  of  superior  information.  "  Have 
you  ever  heard  of  the  king's  prerogative?" 

'i  I  don't  say  but  what  I  have,"  said  Eose,  retreating. 
"I've  nothing  against  it — nothing  at  all." 

"  No,  but  the  Eadicals  have,"  said  young  Joyce,  wink- 
ing. "  The  prerogative  is  what  they  want  to  clip  close. 
They  want  us  to  be  governed  by  delegates  from  the  trades- 
unions,  who  are  to  dictate  to  everybody,  and  make  every- 
thing square  to  their  masterj.'' 


THE   RADICAL.  193 

"They're  a  pretty  set,  now,  these  delegates/'  said  Mr. 
Wace,  with  disgust.  ''I  once  heard,  two  of  'em  spouting 
away.  They're  a  sort  of  fellow  I'd  never  employ  in  my 
brewery,  or  anywhere  else.  I've  seen  it  again  and  again. 
If  a  man  takes  to  tongue-work  it's  all  over  with  him. 
'Everything's  wrong,'  says  he.  That's  a  big  text.  But 
does  he  want  to  make  everything  right?  Not  he.  He'd 
lose  his  text.  'We  want  every  man's  good,'  cay  they. 
Why,  they  never  knew  yet  what  a  man's  good  is.  How 
should  they?  It's  working  for  his  victual — not  getting 
a  slice  of  other  people's." 

"Ay,  ay,"  said  young  Joyce,  cordially.  "I  should  just 
have  liked  all  the  delegates  in  the  country  mustered  for  our 
yeomanry  to  go  into  —  that's  all.  They'd  see  where  the 
strength  of  Old  England  lay  then.  You  may  tell  what  it 
is  for  a  country  to  trust  to  trade  when  it  breeds  such  spin- 
dling fellows  as  those." 

"  That  isn't  the  fault  of  trade,  my  good  sir,"  said  Mr. 
Nolan,  who  was  often  a  little  pained  by  the  defects  of  pro- 
vincial culture.  "  Trade,  properly  conducted,  is  good  for 
a  man's  constitution.  I  could  have  shown  you,  in  my 
time,  weavers  past  seventy,  with  all  their  faculties  as  sharp 
as  a  pen-knife,  doing  without  spectacles.  It's  the  new  sys- 
tem of  trade  that's  to  blame:  a  country  can't  have  too 
much  trade  if  it's  properly  managed.  Plenty  of  sound 
Tories  have  made  their  fortune  by  trade.  You've  heard  of 
Calibut  »&  Co.  — everybody  has  heard  of  Calibut.  Well, 
'sir,  I  knew  old  Mr.  Calibut  as  well  as  I  know  you.  He 
was  once  a  crony  of  mine  in  a  city  warehouse;  and  now, 
I'll  answer  for  it,  he  has  a  larger  rent-roll  than  Lord 
Wyvern.  Bless  your  soul!  his  subscriptions  to  charities 
would  make  a  fine  income  for  a  nobleman.  And  he's  as 
good  a  Tory  as  I  am.  And  as  for  his  town  establishment — 
why,  how  much  butter  do  you  think  it  consumed  there 
annually?  " 

Mr.  isTolan  paused,  and  then  his  face  glowed  with  tri- 
umph as  he  answered  his  own  question.  "  Why,  gentle- 
men, not  less  than  two  thousand  pounds  of  butter  during 
the  few  months  tlie  family  is  in  town!  Trade  makes  prop- 
erty, my  good  sir,  and  property  is  conservative,  as  they  say 
now.  Calibut's  son-in-law  is  Lord  Fortinbras.  He  paid 
mo  a  large  debt  on  his  marriage.  It's  all  one  web,  sir. 
'J'he  prosperity  of  the  country  is  one  web." 

"To  be  sure,"  said  Christian,  who,  smoking  his  cigar 
with  his  chair  turned  away  from  the  table,  was  willing  to 

13 


194  FELIX    HOLT, 

make  himself  agreeable  in  the  conversation.  "  We  can't 
Jo  without  nobility.  Look  at  France.  When  they  got 
rid  of  the  old  nobles  they  were  obliged  to  make  new." 
_  "  True,  very  true/'  said  Mr.  Nolan,  who  thought  Chris- 
tian a-  little  too  wise  for  his  joosition,  but  co-uld  not  resist 
the  rare  gift  of  an  instance  in  point.  "It's  the  French 
Revolution  that  has  done  us  harm  here.  It  was  the  same 
at  the  end  of  the  last  century,  but  the  war  kept  it  off— Mr. 
Pitt  saved  us.  I  knew  Mr.  Pitt.  I  had  a  particular  inter- 
view with  him  once.  He  joked  me  about  getting  the 
length  of  his  foot.  'Mr.  Nolan,'  said  he,  'there  are  those 
on  the  other  side  of  the  water  whose  name  begins  with  N. 
\\\\o  would  be  glad  to  know  what  you  knoAv.'  I  was  rec- 
ommended to  send  an  account  of  that  to  the  newspapers 
after  his  death,  poor  man!  but  I'm  not  fond  of  that  kind 
of  show  myself."  Mr.  Nolan  swung  his  upper  leg  a  little, 
and  pinched  his  lip  between  his  thumb  and  finger,  natu- 
rally pleased  with  his  own  moderation. 

"Ko,  no— very  right,"  said  Mr.  Wace,  cordially.  "But 
you  never  said  a  truer  word  than  that  about  property. 
If  a  man's  got  a  bit  of  property,  a  stake  in  the  country, 
he'll  want  to  keep  things  square.  Where  Jack  isn't  safe, 
Tom's  in  danger.  But  that's  what  makes  it  such  an 
uncommonly  nasty  thing  that  a  man  like  Transonic  should 
take  up  with  these  Radicals.  It's  my  belief  he  does  it  only 
to  get  into  Parliament;  he'll  turn  round  when  he  gets 
there.  Come,  Dibbs,  there's  something  to  put  you  in 
spirits,"  added  Mr.  Wace,  raising  his  voice  a  little  and 
looking  at  a  guest  lower  down.  "You've  got  to  vote  for  a 
Radical  with  one  side  of  your  mouth,  and  make  a  wry 
face  with  the  other;  but  he'll  turn  round  by-and-by.  As 
Parson  Jack  says,  he's  got  the  right  sort  of  blood  in  him." 

"  I  don't  care  two  straws  who  I  vote  for,"  said  Dibbs, 
sturdily.  "  I'm  not  going  to  make  a  wry  face.  It  stands 
to  reason  a  man  should  vote  for  his  landlord.  My  farm's 
in  good  condition,  and  I've  got  the  best  pasture  on  the 
estate.  The  rot's  never  come  nigh  me.  Let  them  grumble 
as  are  on  the  wrong  side  of  the  hedge." 

"I  wonder  if  Jermyn'll  bring  him  in,  though,"  said 
Mr.  Sircome,  the  great  miller.  "He's  an  uncommon 
fellow  for  carrying  things  through.  I  know  he  brought 
me  through  that  suit  about  my  weir;  it  cost  a  pretty  penny, 
but  he  brought  me  through." 

"It's  a  bit  of  a  pill  for  him,  too,  having  to  turn  Rad- 
ical," said  Mr.  Wace.      'They  say  he  counted  on  making 


THE   RADICAL.  195 

friends  with  Sir  Maximus,  by  this  young  one  coming  home 
and  joining  wfth  Mr.  Philip." 

''But  I'll  bet  a  penny  he  brings  Transome  in,"  said  Mr. 
Sircome.  "  Folks  say  he  hasn^t  got  many  votes  hereabout; 
but  toward  Duffield,  and  all  there,  where  the  Eadicals  are, 
everybody's  for  him.  Eh,  Mr.  Christian?  Come — you're 
at  the  fountain-head — what  do  they  say  about  it  now  at 
the  Manor?" 

When  general  attention  was  called  to  Christian  young 
Joyce  looked  down  at  his  own  legs  and  touched  the  curves 
of  his  own  liair,  as  if  measuring  his  own  approximation  to 
that  correct  copy  of  a  gentleman.  Mr.  Wace  turned  his 
head  to  listen  for  Christian's  answer  with  that  tolerance  of 
inferiority  which  becomes  men  in  places  of  public  resort. 

"They  think  it  will  be  a  hard  run  betvv^een  Transome 
and  Garstin,"  said  Christian.  "  It  depends  on  Transome's 
getting  plumpers." 

"  Well,  I  know  I  shall  not  split  for  Garstin,"  said  Mr. 
Wace.  "  It's  nonsense  for  Debarry's  voters  to  split  for  a 
Whig.     A  man's  cither  a  Tory  or  not  a  Tory." 

"  It  seems  reasonable  there  should  be  one  of  each  side," 
said  Mr.  Timothv  Eose.  "I  don't  like  showing  favor 
either  way.  If  one  side  can't  lower  the  poor's  rates  and 
take  oif  the  tithe,  let  the  other  trv." 

"  But  there's  this  in  it,  Wace," said  Mr.  Sircome.  "I'm 
not  altogether  against  the  Whigs.  For  they  don't  want  to 
go  so  far  as  the  Radicals  do,  and  wlien  they  find  they've 
slipped  a  bit  too  far  they'll  hold  on  all  the  tighter.  And 
the  Whigs  liave  got  the  upper  hand  now,  and  it's  no  usv 
fighting  with  the  current.     I  run  with  the " 

Mr.  Sircome  checked  himself,  looked  furtively  at  Chris- 
tian, and,  to  divert  criticism,  ended  with — "eh,  Mr. 
Nolaa?" 

"  There  have  been  eminent  Whigs,  sir.  Mr.  Fox  was  a 
Whig,"  said  Mr.  Nolan.  "Mr.  Fox  was  a  great  orator. 
He  gambled  a  good  deal.  He  was  very  intimate  with  the 
Prince  of  Wales.  I've  seen  him,  and  the  Duke  of 
York  too,  go  home  by  daylight  with  their  hats  crushed. 
Mr.  Fox  was  a  great  leader  of  Opposition:  Government 
requires  an  Opposition.  The  AYhigs  should  always  be  in 
opposition,  and  the  Tories  on  the  ministerial  side.  That's 
what  the  country  used  to  like.  '  The  AVhigs  for  salt  and 
mustard,  the  Tories  for  meat,'  Mr.  Gottlib,  the  banker, 
used  to  say  to  me.  Mr.  Gottlib  was  a  worthy  man.  When 
there  was   a  great  run  on  Gottlib's  bank  in  '16,  I  saw  a 


196  FELIX   HOLT, 

gentleman  come  in  with  bags  of  gold,  and  say,  '  Tell  Mr. 
Gottlib  there's  plenty  more  where  chat  came  from/  It 
stopped  the  run,  gentlemen — it  did  indeed/' 

This  anecdote  was  received  with  great  admiration,  but 
Mr.  Sircome  returned  to  the  previous  question. 

"There  now,  you  see,  Wace — it's  right  there  should  be 
Whigs  as  well  as  Tories — Pitt  and  Fox — I've  always  heard 
them  go  together." 

"Well,  I  don't  like  Garstin,"  said  the  brewer.  "I 
didn't  like  his  conduct  about  the  Canal  Company.  Of  the 
two,  I  like  Transome  best.  If  a  nag  is  to  throw  me,  I  say, 
let  him  have  some  blood." 

"As  for  blood,  Wace,"  said  Mr.  Salt,  the  woolfactor,  a 
bilious  man,  Avho  only  spoke  when  there  was  a  good  oppor- 
tunity of  contradicting,  "ask  m^y  brother-in-law,  Labron, 
a  little  about  that.  These  Transomes  are  not  the  old 
blood." 

"  Well,  they're  the  oldest  that's  forthcoming,  I  suppose," 
said  Mr.  Wace,  laughing.  "  Unless  you  believe  in  mad 
old  Tommy  Trounsem.  I  wonder  where  that  old  poaching 
fellow  is  now." 

"  I  saw  him  half-drunk  the  other  day,^'  said  young  Joyce. 
"He'd  got  a  flag-basket  with  handlDills  in  it  over  his 
shoulder." 

"I  thought  the  old  fellow  was  dead,"  said  Mr.  Wace. 
"Hey!  why,  Jermyn,"  he  went  on  merrily,  as  he  turned 
round  and  saw  the  attorney  entering;  "you  Eadical!  how 
dare  you  show  yourself  in  this  Tory  house?  Come,  this  is 
going  a  bit  too  far.  We  don't  mind  Old  Harry  managing 
our  law  for  us — that's  his  proper  business  from  time 
immemorial;  but " 

"  But — a — "  said  Jermyn,  smiling,  always  ready  to 
carry  on  a  joke,  to  which  his  slow  manner  gave  the  jjiqu- 
ancy  of  surprise,  "  if  he  meddles  with  politics  he  must  be 
a  Tory." 

Jermyn  was  not  afraid  to  show  himself  anywhere  in 
Treby.  He  knew  many  people  were  not  exactly  fond  of 
him,  but  a  man  can  do  without  that,  if  he  is  prosperous. 
A  provincial  lawyer  in  those  old-fashioned  days  was  as 
independent  of  personal  esteem  as  if  he  had  been  a  Lord 
Chancellor. 

There  was  a  good-humored  laugh  at  this  ujjper  end  of 
the  room  as  Jermyn  seated  himself  at  about  an  equal 
angle  between  Mr.  Wace  and  Christian. 

"  We  were  talking  about  old  Tommy  Trounsem;  you 


THE    KADICAL.  197 

remember  him?  They  say  he^s  turned  up  again,"  said 
Mr.  Wace. 

"  Ah?  "  said  Jermyn,  indifferently.  "  But — a — Wace — 
I'm  very  busy  to-day — but  I  wanted  to  see  you  about  that 
bib  of  land  of  yours  at  the  corner  of  Pod's  End.  I've 
had  a  handsome  offer  for  you — I'm  not  at  liberty  to  say 
from  whom — but  an  offer  that  ought  to  tempt  you." 

''It  won't  tempt  me,"  said  Mr.  Wace,  peremptorily,  "  if 
I've  got  a  bit  of  land,  I'll  keep  it.  It's  hard  enough  to  get 
hereabouts." 

"Then  I'm  to  understand  that  you  refuse  all  negotia- 
tion?" said  Jermyn,  who  had  ordered  a  glass  of  sherry, 
and  was  looking  around  slowly  as  he  sipped  it,  till  his  eyes 
seemed  to  rest  for  the  first  time  on  Christian,  though  he 
had  seen  him  at  once  on  entering  the  room. 

"Unless  one  of  the  confounded  railways  should  come. 
But  then  I'll  stand  out  and  make  'em  bleed  for  it." 

There  was  a  murmur  of  approbation;  the  railways  were 
a  public  wrong  much  denunciated  in  Treby. 

"A — Mr.  Philip  Debarry  at  the  Manor  now?"  said  Jer- 
myn, suddenly  questioning  Christian,  in  a  haughty  tone  of 
superiority  which  he  often  chose  to  use. 

"No,"  said  Christian,  "he  is  expected  to-morrow 
morning." 

"Ah! "  Jermyn  paused  a  moment  or  two,  and  then 

said,  "You  are  sufficiently  in  his  confidence,  I  think,  to 
carry  a  message  to  him  with  a  small  docu-ment?" 

"Mr.  Debarry  has  often  trusted  me  so  far,"  said  Chris- 
tian, with  much  coolness;  "but  if  the  business  is  yours, 
you  can  probably  find  some  one  you  know  better." 

There  was  a  little  winking  and  grimacing  among  those 
of  the  company  who  heard  this  answer. 

"A — true — a,"  said  Jermyn,  not  showing  any  offense; 
"if  you  decline.  But  I  think,  if  you  will  do  me  the  favor 
to  step  round  to  my  residence  on  your  way  back,  and  learn 
the  business,  you  will  prefer  carrying  it  yourself.  At  my 
residence,  if  you  please — not  my  office." 

"Oh,  A'ery  well,"  said  Christian.  "I  shall  be  very 
happy."  Christian  never  allowed  himself  to  be  treated  as 
a  servant  by  anyone  but  his  master,  and  his  master  treated  a 
servant  more  defei'entially  than  an  equal. 

"Will  it  be  five  o'clock?  what  hour  shall  we  say?"  said 
Jermyn. 

Christian  looked  at  his  watch  and  said,  "  About  five  I 
can  be  there." 


198  FELIX   HOLT, 

''Very  good,"  said  Jermyn,  finishing  his  sherry. 

f<^^ell_a_Wace— a— so  you  will  hear  nothing  about 
Pod's  End?" 

''Not  I." 

"  A  mere  pocket-handkerchief,  not  enough  to  swear  by — 
a_"  here  Jermyn's  face  broke  into  a  smile— "  without  a 
magnifying-glass." 

"Never  mind.  It's  mine  into  the  bowels  of  the  earth 
and  up  to  the  sky.  I  can  build  the  Tower  of  Babel  on  it 
if  Hike— eh,  Mr.  Nolan?" 

•'A  bad  investment,  my  good  sir,"  said  Mr.  Nolan,  who 
enjoyed  a  certain  flavor  of  infidelity  in  this  smart  reply, 
and  laughed  much  at  it  in  his  inward  way. 

"See  now,  how  blind  you  Tories  are,"  said  Jermyn, 
rising;  "if  I  had  been  yonr  lawyer,  Td  have  had  you 
make  another  forty-shilling  freeholder  with  that  land,  and 
all  in  time  for  this  election.  But — a — the  verluni  sapienti- 
hus  conies  a  little  too  late  now." 

Jermyn  was  moving  away  as  he  finished  speaking,  but 
Mr.  Wace  called  out  after  him,  "We're  not  so  badly  ofE 
for  votes  as  you  are — good  sound  votes,  that'll  stand  the 
Eevising  Barrister.     Debarry  at  the  top  of  the  poll!" 

The  lawyer  was  already  out  of  the  doorway. 


CHAPTEK  XXI. 


'Tis  grievous  that  with  aU  amplification  of  travel  both  by  sea  an"?  land,  a 
man  can  never  separate  himself  from  his  past  history. 

Mr.  Jermyn's  handsome  house  stood  a  little  way  out  of 
the  town,  surrounded  by  garden  and  lawn  and  plantations 
of  hopeful  trees.  As  Christian  approached  it  he  was  in  a 
perfectly  easy  state  of  mind:  the  business  he  was  going  on 
was  none  of  his,  otherwise  than  as  lie  was  well  satisfied 
Avith  any  opportunity  of  making  himself  valuable  to  Mr. 
Philip  Debarry.  As  he  looked  at  Jermyn's  length  of  wall 
and  iron  railing,  he  said  to  himself,  "  These  lawyers  are 
the  fellows  for  getting  on  in  the  world  with  the  least 
expense  of  civility.  With  this  cursed  conjuring  secret  of 
theirs  called  Law,  they  think  everj'body  is  frightened  at 
them.  My  Lord  Jermyn  seems  to  have  his  insolence  as 
ready  as  his  soft  sawder.     He's  as  sleek  as  a  rat,  and  has  as 


THE    KADICAL.  199 

vicious  a  tooth.  I  know  the  sort  of  vermin  well  enough. 
Fve  helped  to  fatten  one  or  two.^' 

In  this  mood  of  conscious,  contemjituous  penetration, 
Christian  was  shown  by  the  footman  into  Jermyn's  pri- 
vate room,  where  the  attorney  sat  surrounded  with  mass- 
ive oaken  book-cases,  and  other  furniture  to  correspond, 
from  the  thickest-legged  library-table  to  the  calendar  frame 
and  card-rack.  It  was  the  sort  of  a  room  a  man  prepares 
for  himself  when  he  feels  sure  of  a  long  and  respectable 
future.  He  was  leaning  back  in  his  leather  chair,  against 
the  broad  window  opening  on  the  laAvn,  and  had  just  taken 
otf  his  spectacles  and  let  tlie  newspaper  fall  on  his  knees, 
in  despair  of  reading  by  the  fading  light. 

When  the  footman  opened  the  door  and  said,  ''Mr. 
Christian,"  Jermyn  said,  "Good-evening,  Mr.  Christian. 
Be  seated,"  pointing  to  a  chair  opposite  himself  and  the 
window.  "Light  the  candles  on  the  shelf,  John,  but 
leave  the  blinds  alone." 

He  did  not  speak  again  till  the  man  was  gone  out,  but 
appeared  to  be  referring  to  a  document  which  lay  on  the 
bureau  before  him.  When  the  door  was  closed  he  drew 
himself  up  again,  began  to  rub  his  hands,  and  turned 
toward  his  visitor,  who  seemed  perfectly  indifferent  to  the 
fact  that  the  attorney  was  in  shadow,  and  that  the  light 
fell  on  himself. 

"A — your  name — a — is  Henry  Scaddon." 

There  was  a  start  through  Christian's  frame  which  he 
"was  quick  enough,  almost  simultaneously,  to  try  and  dis- 
guise as  a  change  of  position.  He  uncrossed  his  legs  and 
unbuttoned  his  coat.  But  before  he  had  time  to  say  any- 
thing, Jermyn  went  on  with  slow  emphasis. 

"  You  were  born  on  the  sixteenth  of  December,  1783,  at 
Blackheath.  Your  father  Avas  a  cloth-merchant  in  Lon- 
don: he  died  when  you  were  barely  of  age,  leaving  an 
extensive  business;  before  you  were  five-and-twenty  you 
had  run  through  the  greater  part  of  the  property,  and  had 
compromised  your  safety  by  an  attempt  to  defraud  your 
creditors.  Subsequently  you  forged  a  check  on  your 
father's  elder  brother,  who  had  intended  to  make  you  his 
heir." 

Here  Jermyn  paused  a  moment  and  referred  to  the 
document.     Christian  was  silent. 

"In  1808  you  found  it  expedient  to  leave  this  country 
in  a  military  disguise,  and  were  taken  prisoner  by  the 
French.     On  the  occasion  of  an  excliange  of  prisoners  you 


200  FELIX    HOLT, 

had  the  oi)portunity  of  returning  to  your  own  country,  and 
to  the  bosom  of  your  own  family.  You  were  generous 
enough  to  sacrifice  that  prospect  in  favor  of  a  fellow-pris- 
oner, of  about  your  own  age  and  figure,  who  had  more 
pressing  reasons  than  yourself  for  wishing  to  be  on  this 
side  of  the  water.  You  exchanged  dress,  luggage,  and 
names  with  him,  and  he  passed  to  England  instead  of  you 
as  Henry  Scaddon.  Almost  immediately  afterward  you 
escaped  from  ydur  imprisonment,  after  feigning  an  illness 
which  prevented  your  exchange  of  names  from  being  dis- 
covered; and  it  was  reported  that  you — that  is,  you  under 
the  name  of  your  fellow-prisoner — were  drowned  in  an 
open  boat,  trying  to  reach  a  Neapolitan  vessel  bound  for 
Malta.  Nevertheless  I  have  to  congratulate  you  on  the 
falsehood  of  that  report,  and  on  the  certainty  that  you  are 
now,  after  the  lapse  of  more  than  twenty  years,  seated  here 
in  perfect  safety." 

Jermyn  paused  so  long  that  he  was  evidently  awaiting 
some  answer.     At  last  Christian  replied  in  a  dogged  tone — 

"^Well,  sir,  I've  heard  much  longer  stories  than  that 
told  quite  as  solemnly,  when  there  was  not  a  word  of  truth 
in  them.  Suppose  I  deny  the  very  peg  you  hang  your 
statement  on.     Suppose  I  say  I  am  not  Henry  Scaddon.^' 

"A — in  that  case — a,"  said  Jermyn,  with  wooden  indif- 
ference, "  you  would  lose  the  advantage  which — a — may 
attach  to  your  possession  of  Henry  Scaddon's  knowledge. 
And  at  the  same  time,  if  it  were  in  the  least — a — incon- 
venient to  you  that  you  should  be  recognized  as  Henry 
Scaddon,  your  denial  would  not  prevent  me  from  holding 
the  knowledge  and  evidence  which  I  possess  on  that  point; 
it  would  only  prevent  us  from  pursuing  the  present  con- 
versation." 

"Well,  sir,  suppose  we  admit,  for  the  sake  of  the 
conversation,  that  your  account  of  the  matter  is  the  true 
one:  what  advantage  have  you  to  offer  the  man  named 
Henry  Scaddon?" 

"The  advantage — a — is  problematical;  but  it  may  be 
considerable.  It  might,  in  fact,  release  you  from  the 
necessity  of  acting  as  courier,  or — a — valet,  or  whatever 
other  office  you  may  occupy  which  prevents  you  from 
being  your  own  master.  On  the  other  hand,  my  acquaint- 
ance with  your  secret  is  not  necessarily  a  disadvantage  to 
you.  To  put  the  matter  in  a  nutshell,  I  am  not  inclined — 
a — gratuitously — to  do  you  any  harm,  and  I  may  be  able 
to  do  you  a  considerable  service." 


fc> 


THE   RADICAL.  201 

**  Which  yon  want  me  to  earn  somehow?"  said  Chris- 
tian.    *^You  offer  me  a  turn  in  a  lottery?" 

"Precisely.  The  matter  in  question  is  of  no  earthly 
interest  to  yo-ii,  except — a — as  it  may  yield  yon  a  prize. 
We  lawyers  have  to  do  with  complicated  questions,  and — 
a — legal  subtleties,  which  are  never — a — fully  known  even 
to  the  parties  immediately  interested,  still  less  to  the  wit- 
nesses. Shall  we  agree,  then,  that  you  continue  to  retain 
two  thirds  of  the  name  which  you  gained  by  exchange, 
and  that  you  oblige  me  by  answering  certain  questions  as 
to  the  experience  of  Henry  Scaddon?" 

"Very  good.     Goon." 

"What  articles  of  property  once  belonging  to  your 
fellow-prisoner,  Maurice  Christian  Bycliffe,  do  you  still 
retain  ?  " 

"  This  ring,"  said  Christian,  twirling  round  the  fine 
seal-ring  on  his  finger,  "his  watch,  and  the  little  matters 
that  hung  with  it,  and  a  case  of  papers.  I  got  rid  of  a 
gold  snuff-box  once  when  I  was  hard  up.  The  clothes  are 
all  gone,  of  course.  We  exchanged  everything;  it  was  all 
done  in  a  hurry  Bycliffe  thought  we  should  meet  again 
in  England  before  long,  and  he  was  mad  to  get  there.  But 
that  was  impossible — I  mean  that  we  should  meet  soon 
after.  I  don't  know  what's  become  o^  him,  else  I  would 
give  him  up  his  papers  and  the  watch,  and  so  on — though, 
you  know,  it  was  I  who  did  Jiim  the  service,  and  he  felt 
that." 

"  You  were  at  Vesoul  together  before  being  moved  to 
Verdun?" 

"Yes." 

"What  else  do  you  know  about  Bycliffe?" 

"  Oh,  nothing  very  particular,"  said  Christian,  pausing, 
and  rapping  his  boot  with  his  cane.  "  He'd  been  in  the 
Hanoverian  army  —  a  high-spirited  fellow,  took  nothing 
easily;  not  over-strong  in  health.  He  made  a  fool  of  him- 
self with  marrying  at  Vesoul;  and  there  was  the  devil  to 
pay  with  the  girl's  relations;  and  then,  when  the  prisoners 
were  ordered  off,  they  had  to  part.  Whether  they  ever  got 
together  again  I  don't  know." 

"  Was  the  marriage  all  right  then?" 

"  Oh,  all  on  the  square — civil  marriage,  church — every- 
thing. Bycliffe  was  a  fool — a  good-natured,  proud,  head- 
strong fellow." 

"How  long  did  the  marriage  take  place  before  you  left 
Vesoul?" 


202  FELIX   HOLT, 

"  About  three  months.    I  was  a  witness  to  the  marriage." 

"And  you  know  no  more  about  the  wife?" 

"  Not  afterward.  I  knew  her  very  well  before  —  pretty 
Annette — Annette  Ledru  was  her  name.  She  was  of  a 
good  family,  and  they  had  made  up  a  fine  match  for  her. 
But  she  was  one  of  your  meek  little  diablesses,  who  have  a 
will  of  their  own  once  in  their  lives  —  the  will  to  choose 
their  own  master." 

''Bycliffe  was  not  open  to  you  about  his  other  affairs?" 

"  Oh,  no  — a  fellow  you  wouldn^t  dare  to  ask  a  question 
of.  People  told  him  everything,  but  he  told  nothing  in 
return.  If  Madame  Annette  ever  found  him  again,  she 
found  her  lord  and  master  with  a  vengeance;  but  she  was 
a  regular  lapdog.  However,  her  family  shut  her  up — made 
a  prisoner  of  her — to  prevent  her  running  away." 

"Ah — good.  Much  of  what  you  have  been  so  obliging 
as  to  say  is  irrelevant  to  any  possible  purpose  of  mine, 
which,  in  fact,  has  to  do  only  with  a  mouldy  law-case  that 
might  be  aired  some  day.  You  will  doubtless,  on  your 
own  account,  maintain  perfect  silence  on  what  has  passed 
between  us,  and  with  that  condition  duly  preserved  —  a — 
it  is  jDossible  that  —  a  —  the  lottery  you  have  put  into  —  as 
you  observe — may  turn  up  a  prize." 

"This,  then,  is  all  the  business  you  have  with  me?" 
said  Christian,  rising. 

"All.  You  will,  of  course,  preserve  carefully  all  the 
papers  and  other  articles  which  have  so  many  —  a  —  recol- 
lections—  a  —  attached  to  them?" 

"  Oh,  yes.  If  there's  any  chance  of  Bycliffe  turning  up 
again,  I  shall  be  sorry  to  have  parted  with  the  snuff  box; 
but  I  was  hard-up  at  Naples.  In  fact,  as  you  see,  I  was 
obliged  at  last  to  turn  courier." 

"  An  exceedingly  agreeable  life  for  a  man  of  some — a — 
accomplishments  and — a — no  income,"  said  Jermyn,  rising, 
and  reaching  a  candle,  which  lie  placed  against  his  desk. 

Christian  knew  this  was  a  sign  that  he  was  expected  to 
go,  but  he  lingered  standing,  with  one  hand  on  the  back 
of  liis  chair.     At  last  he  said  rather  sulkily — 

"I  think  you're  too  clever,  Mr.  Jermyn,  not  to  perceive 
that  I'm  not  a  man  to  be  made  a  fool  of." 

"Well — a — it  may  perhaps  be  a  still  better  guarantee 
for  you,"  said  Jermyn,  smiling,  "that  I  see  no  iise  in 
attempting  that — a — metamorphosis." 

"The  old  gentleman,  who  ought   never  to   have  felt 


THE    RADICAL.  203 

himself  injured,  is  dead  now,  and  I'm  not  afraid  of  credit- 
ors after  more  than  twenty  years." 

"  Certainly  not; — a — there  may  indeed  be  claims  which 
can't  assert  themselves — a — legally,  which  yet  are  molest- 
ing to  a  man  of  some  reputation.  But  you  may  perhaps 
be  happily  free  from  such  fears." 

Jermyn  drew  round  his  chair  toward  the  bureau,  and 
Christian,  too  acute  to  persevere  uselessly,  said,  "  Good- 
day,  "  and  left  the  room.  • 

After  leaning  back  in  his  chair  to  reflect  a  few  minutes, 
Jermyn  wrote  the  following  letter: — 

Dear  Johnson, — I  learn  from  your  letter,  received  this  morning, 
that  you  intend  returning  to  town  on  Saturday. 

While  you  are  there,  be  so  good  as  to  see  Med"^in,  who  used  to  be 
with  Butt  &  Cowley,  and  ascertain  from  him  indirectly,  and  in  the 
course  of  coiW'ersation  on  other  topics,  whether  in  that  old  business  in 
1810-11,  Scaddon  alias  Bycliffe,  or  Bycliffe  alias  Scaddon,  before  his 
imprisonment,  gave  Batt  &  Cowley  any  reason  to  believe  that  he  was 
married  and  expected  to  have  a  child.  The  question,  as  you  know, 
is  of  no  practical  importance;  but  I  wish  to  draw  up  an  abstract  of 
the  Bycliffe  case,  and  the  exact  position  in  which  it  stood  before  the 
suit  was  closed  by  the  death  of  the  plaintiff,  in  order  that,  if  Mr. 
Harold  Transonic  desires  it,  he  may  see  how  the  failure  of  the  last 
claim  has  secured  the  Durfey-Transome  title,  and  whether  there  is  a 
hair's-breadth  of  chance  that  another  claim  should  be  set  up. 

Of  course  there  is  not  a  shadow  of  such  a  chance.  For  even  if 
Batt  &  Cowley  were  to  suppose  that  they  had  alighted  on  a  surviving 
representative  of  the  Bycliffes,  it  would  not  enter  their  heads  to  set 
up  a  new  claim,  since  they  brought  evidence  that  the  last  life  which 
suspended  the  Bycliffe  remainder  was  extinct  before  the  case  was 
closed,  a  good  twenty  years  ago. 

Still,  1  want  to  show  the  present  heir  of  the  Durfey-Transomes 
the  exact  condition  of  the  family  title  to  the  estates.  So  get  me  an 
answer  from  Medwin  on  the  above  mentioned  ix>int. 

I  shall  meet  you  at  Duffield  next  week.     We  must  get  Transome 
returned.     Never  mind  his  having  been  a  little  rough  the  other  day, 
but  go  on  doing  what  you  know  is  necessary  for  his  interest.     Etis 
interest  is  mine,  which  I  need  not  say  is  John  Johnson's. 
Yours  faithfully, 

Matthew  Jebmyn. 

When  the  attorney  had  sealed  this  letter  and  leaned  back 
in  his  chair  again,  he  was  inwardly  saying — 

"  Now,  Mr,  Harold,  I  shall  shut  up  this  affair  in  a 
private  drawer  till  you  choose  to  take  any  extreme  meas- 
ures which  will  force  me  to  bring  it  out.  I  have  the 
matter  entirely  in  my  own  power.  No  one  but  old  Lyon 
knows  about  the  girl's  birth.  No  one  but  Scaddon  can 
clench  the  evidence  about  Bycliffe,  and  I've  got  Scaddon 
under  my  thumb.     No  soul  except  myself  and  Johnson, 


204  FELIX  noLT, 

who  is  a  limb  of  myself,  knows  that  there  is  one  half-dead 
life  which  may  presently  leave  the  girl  a  new  claim 
to  the  Byclitfe  heirship.  I  shall  learn  through  Methurst 
whether  Batt  &  Cowley  knew,  through  Bycliffe,  of  this 
woman  having  come  to  England.  I  shall  hold  all  the 
threads  between  my  thumb  and  finger.  I  can  use  the 
evidence  or  I  can  nullify  it. 

"  And  so,  if  Mr.  Harold  pushes  me  to  extremity,  and 
threatens  me  with  cl»ancery  and  ruin,  I  have  an  opposing 
threat,  which  will  either  save  me  or  turn  into  a  punishment 
for  him." 

He  rose,  put  out  his  candles,  and  stood  with  his  back  to 
the  fire,  looking  out  on  the  dim  lawn,  with  its  black  twi- 
light fringe  of  shrubs,  still  meditating.  Quick  thought 
was  gleaming  over  five-and-thirty  years  filled  with  devices 
more  or  less  clever,  more  or  less  desirable  to  Be  avowed. 
Those  which  might  be  avowed  with  impunity  were  not 
always  to  be  distinguished  as  innocent  by  comparison  with 
those  which  it  was  advisable  to  conceal.  In  a  profession 
where  much  that  is  noxious  may  be  done  without  disgrace, 
is  a  conscience  likely  to  be  without  balm  when  circum- 
stances have  urged  a  man  to  overstep  the  line  where  his 
good  technical  information  makes  him  aware  that  (with 
discovery)  disgrace  is  likely  to  begin? 

With  regard  to  the  Transome  affairs,  the  family  had 
been  in  pressing  need  of  money,  and  it  had  lain  with  him 
to  get  it  for  them:  was  it  to  be  expected  that  he  would  not 
consider  his  own  advantage  where  he  had  rendered  services 
such  as  are  never  fully  paid?  If  it  came  to  a  question  of 
right  and  wrong  instead  of  law,  the  least  justifiable  things 
he  had  ever  done  had  been  done  on  behalf  of  the  Tran- 
somes.  It  had  been  a  deucedly  unpleasant  thing  for  him 
to  get  Bycliffe  arrested  and  thrown  into  prison  as  Henry 
Scaddon — perhaps  hastening  the  man's  death  in  that  way. 
But  if  it  had  not  been  done  by  dint  of  his  (Jermyn's) 
exertions  and  tact,  he  would  like  to  know  where  the  t)ur- 
fey-Transomes  might  have  been  by  this  time.  As  for  right 
or  wrong,  if  the  truth  were  known,  the  very  possession  of 
the  estate  by  the  Durfey-Transomes  was  owing  to  law- 
tricks  that  took  place  nearly  a  century  ago,  when  the 
original  old  Durfey  got  his  base  fee. 

But  inward  argument  of  this  sort  now,  as  always,  was 
merged  in  anger,  in  exasperation,  that  Harold,  precisely 
Harold  Transome,  should  have  turned  out  to  be  the  prob- 
able instrument  of  a  visitation  which  would  be  bad  luck. 


THE    RADICAL.  305 

not  justice;  for  is  there  any  justice  where  ninety-nine  out 
of  every  hundred  escape?  He  felt  himself  beginning  to  hate 

Harold  as  he  had  never 

Just  then  Jermyn's  third  daughter,  a  tall  slim  girl, 
wrapped  in  a  white  woolen  shawl,  which  she  had  hung 
over  her  blanket-wise,  skipped  across  the  lawn  toward 
the  greenhouse  to  get  a  flower.  Jermyn  was  startled, 
and  did  not  identify  the  figure,  or  rather  he  identified 
it  falsely  with  another  tall  white-wrapped  figure  which  had 
sometimes  set  his  heart  beating  quickly  more  than  thirty 
years  before.  For  a  moment  he  was  fully  back  in  those 
distant  years  when  lie  and  another  bright-eyed  person 
had  seen  no  reason  why  they  should  not  indulge  their 
passion  and  their  vanity,  and  determine  for  themselves 
how  their  lives  should  be  made  delightful  in  spite  of 
unalterable  external  conditions.  The  reasons  had  been 
unfolding  themselves  gradually  ever  since  through  all 
the  years  which  had  converted  the  handsome,  soft-eyed, 
slim  young  Jermyn  (with  a  touch  of  sentiment,  into  a 
portly  lawyer  of  sixty,  for  whom  life  had  resolved  itself 
into  the  means  of  keeping  up  his  head  among  his  profes- 
sional brethren  and  maintaining  an  establishment — into  a 
gray-haired  husband  and  father,  whose  third  affectionate 
■  and  expensive  daughter  now  rapped  at  the  window  and 
called  to  him,  ''Papa,  papa,  get  ready  for  dinner;  don't 
you  remember  that  the  Lukyns  are  coming?" 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

Hei'  gentle  looks  shot  arrows,  piercing  him 
As  gods  ai-e  pierced,  with  poison  of  sweet  pity. 

The  evening  of  the  market-day  had  passed,  and  Felix 
had  not  looked  in  at  Malthouse  Yard  to  talk  over  the 
public  events  with  Mr.  Lyon.  When  Esther  was  dressing 
the  next  morning,  she  had  reached  a  point  of  irritated 
anxiety  to  see  Felix,  at  which  she  found  herself  devising 
little  schemes  for  attaining  that  end  in  some  way  that 
would  be  so  elaborate  as  to  seem  perfectly  natural.  Her 
watch  had  a  long-standing  ailment  of  losing;  possibly  it 
wanted  cleaning;  Felix  would  tell  her  if  it  merely  wanted 
regulating,  whereas  Mr.  Prowd  might  detain  it  unneces- 
sarily, and  cause  her  useless  inconvenience.     Or  could  she 


20G  FELIX   HOLT, 

not  get  a  valuable  hint  from  Mrs.  Holt  about  the  home- 
made bread,  which  was  something  as  ''sad"  as  Lyddy 
herself?  Or,  if  she  came  home  that  way  at  twelve  o'clock, 
Felix  might  be  going  out,  she  might  meet  him,  and  not 
be  obliged  to  call.  Or — but  it  would  be  very  much 
beneath  her  to  take  any  steps  of  this  sort.  Her  watch 
had  been  losing  for  the  last  two  months — why  should 
it  not  go  on  losing  a  little  longer?  She  could  think 
of  no  devices  that  were  not  so  transparent  as  to  oe 
undignified.  All  the  more  undignified  because  Felix 
chose  to  live  in  a  way  that  would  prevent  any  one 
from  classing  him  according  to  his  education  and  mental 
refinement — "  which  certainly  are  very  high,"  said  Esther 
inwardly,  coloring,  as  if  in  answer  to  some  contrary 
allegation,  "else  I  should  not  think  his  opinion  of  any  con- 
sequence." But  she  came  to  the  conclusion  that  she  could 
not  possibly  call  at  Mrs.  Holt's. 

It  followed  that,  up  to  a  few  minutes  past  twelve,  when 
she  reached  the  turning  toward  Mrs.  Holt's,  she  believed 
that  she  should  go  home  the  other  way;  but  at  the  last 
moment  there  is  always  a  reason  not  existing  before — 
namely,  the  impossibility  of  further  vacillation.  Esther 
turned  the  corner  without  any  visible  pause,  and  in  another 
minute  was  knocking  at  Mrs.  Holt's  door,  not  without  an 
inward  flutter,  which  she  was  bent  on  disguising. 

"It's  never  you.  Miss  Lyon!  who'd  have  thought  of  see- 
ing you  at  this  time?  Is  the  minister  ill?  I  thought  he 
looked  creechy.    If  you  want  help,  I'll  put  my  bonnet  on." 

"Don't  keep  Miss  Lyon  at  the  door,  mother;  ask  her  to 
come  in,"  said  the  ringing  voice  of  Felix,  surmounting 
various  small  shufflings  and  babbling  voices  within. 

"It's  my  wish  for  her  to  come  in,  I'm  sure,"  said  Mrs. 
Holt,  making  way;  "but  what  is  there  for  her  to  come  in 
to?  a  floor  worse  than  any  public.  But  step  in,  joray,  if 
you're  so  inclined.  When  I've  been  forced  to  take  liiy  bit 
of  carpet  up,  and  have  benches,  I  don't  see  why  I  need 
mind  nothing  no  more." 

"I  only  came  to  ask  Mr.  Holt  if  he  would  look  at  my 
watch  for  me,"  said  Esther,  entering,  and  blushing  a  gen- 
eral rose-color. 

"He'll  do  that  fast  enough,"  said  Mrs.  Holt,  with 
emphasis;  "  that's  one  of  the  things  he  will  do." 

"Excuse  my  rising.  Miss  Lyon,"  said  Felix;  "I'm 
binding  up  Job's  finger  " 

Job  was  a  small  fellow  about  five,  with  a  germinal  nose, 


THE   RADICAL.     .  .  30? 

large  round  blue  eyes,  and  red  hair  that  curled  close  to  his 
head  like  the  wool  on  the  back  of  an  infantine  lamb. 
He  had  evidently  been  crying,  and  the  corners  of  his 
mouth  were  still  dolorous.  Felix  held  him  on  his  knee  as 
he  bound  and  tied  up  very  cleverly  a  tiny  forefinger.  There 
was  a  table  in  front  of  Felix  and  against  the  window,  cov- 
ered with  his  watch-making  implements  and  some  open 
books.  Two  benches  stood  at  right  angles  on  the  sanded 
floor,  and  six  or  seven  boys  of  various  ages  up  to  twelve 
were  getting  their  caps  and  preparing  to  go  home.  They 
huddled  themselves  together  and  stood  still  when  Esther 
entered.  Felix  could  not  look  up  till  he  had  finished  his 
surgery,  but  he  went  on  speaking. 

"  This  is  a  hero,  Miss  Lyon.  This  is  Job  Tudge,  a  bold 
Briton  whose  finger  hurts  him,  but  who  doesn't  mean  to 
cry.  Good-morning,  boys.  Don't  lose  your  time.  Get 
out  into  the  air." 

Esther  seated  herself  on  the  end  of  the  bench  near  Felix, 
much  relieved  that  Job  was  the  immediate  object  of  atten- 
tion; and  the  other  boys  rushed  out  behind  her  with  a  brief 
chant  of  "  Good-morning !'' 

''Did  you  ever  see,"  said  Mrs.  Holt,  standing  to  look 
on,  ''how  wonderful  Felix  is  at  that  small  work  with  his 
large  fingers?  And  that's  because  he  learned  doctoring. 
It  isn't  for  want  of  cleverness  he  looks  like  a  poor  man. 
Miss  Lyon.  I've  left  off  speaking,  else  I  should  say  it's- a 
sin  and  a  shame." 

"Mother,"  said  Felix,  who  often  amused  himself  and 
kept  good-humored  by  giving  his  mother  answers  that 
were  unintelligible  to  her,  "you  have  an  astonishing  readi- 
ness in  the  Ciceronian  antiphrasis,  considering  you  have 
never  studied  oratory.  There,  Job—  thou  patient  man  — 
sit  still  if  tliou  wilt;  and  now  we  can  look  at  Miss  Lyon." 

Esther  hud  taken  off  her  watch  and  was  holding  it  in 
her  hand.  But  he  looked  at  her  face,  or  rather  at  her 
eyes,  as  he  said,  "You  want  me  to  doctor  your  watch?" 

Esther's  cx]n-cssion  was  appealing  and  timid,  as  it  had 
never  been  before  in  Felix's  presence;  but  when  she  saw 
tlie  perfect  calmness,  which  to  her  seemed  coldness,  of  his 
clear  gray  eyes,  as  if  he  saw  no  reason  for  attaching  any 
emphasis  to  this  first  meeting,  a  pang  swift  as  an  electric 
shock  darted  through  her.  She  had  been  very  foolish  to 
think  so  much  of  \i.  It  seemed  to  her  as  if  her  inferiority 
to  Felix  made  a  gulf  between  them.  She  could  not  at 
once  rally  her  pride  and  self-command,  but  let  her  glance 


208  •         FELIX    HOLT, 

fall  on  her  watch,  and  said,  rather  tremulously,  "  It  lose&. 
It  is  very  troublesome.     It  has  been  losing  a  long  while." 

Felix  took  the  watch  from  her  hand;  then,  looking 
round  and  seeing  that  his  mother  was  gone  out  of  the 
room,  he  said,  very  gently  — 

"  You  look  distressed.  Miss  Lyon.  I  hope  there  is  no 
trouble  at  home"  (Felix  was  thinking  of  the  minister's^ 
agitation  on  the  previous  Sunday).  "But  I  ought  per- 
haps to  beg  your  pardon  for  saying  so  much." 

Poor  Esther  was  quite  helpless.  The  mortification 
which  had  come  like  a  bruise  to  all  the  sensibilities  that 
had  been  in  keen  activity,  insisted  on  some  relief.  Her 
eyes  filled  instantly,  and  a  great  tear  rolled  down  while 
she  said  in  a  loud  sort  of  whisper,  as  involuntary  as  her 
tears  — 

"I  wanted  to  tell  you  that  I  was  not  offended  —  that  I 
am  not  ungenerous  —  I  thought  you  might  think  —  but 
you  have  not  thought  of  it." 

Was  there  ever  more  awkward  speaking? — or  any 
behavior  less  like  that  of  the  graceful,  self-possessed  Miss 
Lyon,  whose  phrases  were  usually  so  well  turned,  and 
whose  repartees  were  so  ready? 

For  a  moment  there  was  silence.  Esther  had  her  two 
little  delicately-gloved  hands  clasped  on  the  table.  The 
next  moment  she  felt  one  hand  of  Felix  covering  them 
iDoth  and  pressing  them  firmly;  but  he  did  not  speak. 
The  tears  were  both  on  her  cheeks  now,  and  she  could 
look  up  at  him.  His  eyes  had  an  expression  of  sadness  in 
them,  quite  new  to  her.  S-uddenly  little  Job,  who  had  his 
mental  exercises  on  the  occasion,  called  out,  impatiently — 

"She's  tut  her  finger!" 

Felix  and  Esther  laughed,  and  drsw  their  hands  away; 
and  as  Esther  took  her  handkerchief  to  wipe  the  tears 
from  her  cheeks  she  said — 

"  You  see.  Job,  I  am  a  naughty  coward.  I  can^t  help 
crying  when  Pve  hurt  myself." 

"  Zoo  soodn't  kuy,"  said  Job,  energetically,  being  much 
impressed  with  a  moral  doctrine  which  had  come  to  him 
after  a  sufficient  transgression  of  it. 

''Job  is  like  me,"  said  Felix,  "fonder  of  preaching 
than  of  practice.  But  let  us  look  at  this  same  watch,"  he 
went  on,  opening  and  examining  it.  "  These  little  Geneva 
toys  are  cleverly  constructed  to  go  always  a  little  wrong. 
But  if  you  wind  them  up  and  set  them  regiilarly  every 


THE    RADICAL.  209 

night,  you  may  know  at  least  that  it's  not  noon  when  the 
liand  points  there/' 

Felix  chatted,  that  Esther  might  recover  herself;  but 
now  Mrs.  Holt  came  back  and  apologized. 

"You'll  excuse  my  going  away,  I  know.  Miss  Lyon. 
But  there  were  the  dumplings  to  see  to,  and  what  little 
I've  got  left  on  my  hands  now  I  like  to  do  well.  Not  but 
what  I've  more  cleaning  to  do  than  ever  I  had  in  my  life 
before,  as  you  may  tell  soon  enough  if  you  look  at  this 
floor.  But  when  you've  been  used  to  doing  things,  and 
they've  been  taken  away  from  you,  it's  as  if  your  hands 
had  been  cut  off,  and  you  felt  the  fingers  as  are  of  no  use 
to  you." 

"  That's  a  great  image,  mother,"  said  Felix,  as  he 
snapped  the  watch  together  and  handed  it  to  Esther:  "I 
never  heard  you  use  such  an  image  before." 

"  Yes,  I  know  you've  always  some  fault  to  find  with 
what  your  mother  says'.  But  if  ever  there  was  a 
woman  could  talk  with  the  open  Bible  before  her,  and 
not  be  afraid,  it's  me.  I  never  did  tell  stories,  and  I  never 
will — though  I  know  it's  done.  Miss  Lyon,  and  by  churcli 
members  too,  when  they  have  candles  to  sell,  as  I  could 
bring  you  the  proof.  But  I  never  was  one  of  'em,  let 
Felix  say  what  he  will  about  the  printing  on  the  tickets. 
His  father  believed  it  was  gospel  truth,  and  it's  presump- 
tuous to  say  it  wasn't.  For  as  for  curing,  how  can  any- 
body know?  There's  no  physic'll  cure  without  a  blessing, 
and  with  a  blessing  I  know  I've  seen  a  mustard  plaister 
work  when  there  was  no  more  smell  nor  strength  in  the 
mustard  than  so  much  flour.  And  reason  good — for  the 
mustard  had  lain  in  paper  nobody  knows  how  long — so  I'll 
leave  you  to  guess." 

Mrs.  Holt  looked  hard  out  of  the  window  and  gave  a 
slight,  inarticulate  sound  of  scorn. 

Felix  had  leaned  back  in  his  chair  with  a  resigned 
smile,  and  was  jjinching  Job's  ears. 

Esther  said,  ''I  think  I  had  better  go  now,"  not  know- 
ing what  else  to  say,  yet  not  wisliiug  to  go  immediately, 
lest  she  should  seem  to  be  running  away  from  Mrs.  Holt. 
She  felt  keenly  how  much  endurance  there  must  be  for 
Felix.  And  she  had  often  been  discontented  with  her 
father,  and  called  him  tiresome  ! 

"Where  does  Job  Tudge  live?"  she  said,  still  sitting 
and  looking  at  the  droll  little  figure,  set  off  by  a  ragged 
U 


310  FELIX    HOLT, 

jacket  with  a  tail  about  two  inches  deep  sticking  out  above 
the  funniest  of  corduroys. 

"Job  has  two  mansions,"  said  Felix.  ''He  lives  here 
chiefly;  but  he  has  another  home,  where  his  grandfather, 
Mr.  Tudge,  the  stone-breaker,  lives.  My  mother  is  very 
good  to  Job,  Miss  Lyon.  She  has  made  him  a  little  bed 
in  a  cujiboard,  and  she  gives  him  sweetened  porridge.''* 

The  exquisite  goodness  ifhplied  in  these  words  of  Felix 
impressed  Esther  the  more,  because  in  her  hearing  his 
talk  had  usually  been  pungent  and  denunciatory.  Looking 
at  Mrs.  Holt,  she  saw  that  her  eyes  had  lost  their  bleak 
north-easterly  expression,  and  were  shining  with  some 
mildness  on  little  Job,  who  had  turned  round  toward  her, 
propping  his  head  against  Felix. 

"  \Yell,  why  shouldn't  I  be  motherly  to  the  child,  Miss 
Lyon?"  said  Mrs.-  Holt,  whose  strong  powers  of  argument 
required  the  file  of  an  imagined  contradiction,  if  there  were 
no  real  one  at  hand.  "  I  never  was  hard-hearted,  and  I 
never  will  be.  It  was  Felix  picked  the  child  up  and  took 
to  him,  you  may  be  sure,  for  there's  nobody  else  master 
where  he  is;  but  I  wasn't  going  to  beat  the  orphan  child 
and  abuse  him  because  of  that,  and  him  as  straight  as  an 
arrow  Avhen  he's  stripped,  and  me  so  fond  of  children,  and 
only  had  one  of  my  own  to  live.  I'd  three  babies,  Miss 
Lyon,  but  the  blessed  Lord  only  spared  Felix,  and  him  the 
masterfulest  and  brownest  of  'em  all.  But  I  did  my  duty 
by  him,  and  I  said,  he'll  have  more  schooling  than  his 
father,  and  he'll  grow  up  a  doctor,  and  marry  a  woman 
Avith  money  to  furnish — as  I  was  myself,  spoons  and  every- 
thing— and  I  shall  have  the  grandchildren  to  look  up  to 
me,  and  be  drove  out  in  the  gig  sometimes,  like  old  Mrs. 
Lukyn.  And  you  see  what  it's  all  come  to,  Miss  'Lyon: 
here's  Felix  made  a  common  man  of  himself,  and  says 
he'll  never  be  married — which  is  the  most  unreasonable 
thing,  and  him  never  easy  but  when  he's  got  the  child  on 
his  lap,  or  when " 

"Stop,  stop,  mother,"  Felix  burst  in;  "pray  don't  use 
that  limping  argument  again — that  a  man  should  marry 
because  he's  fond  of  children.  That's  a  reason  for  not 
marrying.  A  bachelor's  children  are  always  young:  they're 
immortal  children — always  lisping,  waddling,  helpless,  and 
with  a  chance  of  turning  out  good." 

"The  Lord  above  may  know  what  you-  mean!  And 
haven't  other  folks's  children  a  chance  of  turning  out 
good?" 


THE   RADICAL.  211 

"  Oh,  they  grow  out  of  it  very  fast.  Here's  Job  Tndge 
now/'  said  Felix,  turning  tlie  little  one  round  on  his  knee, 
and  holding  his  head  by  the  back — ''Job's  limbs  will  get 
lanky;  this  little  fist  that  looks  like  a  puff-ball  and  can 
hide  nothing  bigger  than  a  gooseberry,  A\ill  get  large  and 
bony,  and  perhaps  want  to  clutch  more  than  its  share;  these 
wide  blue  eyes  that  tell  me  more  truth  than  Job  knows,  will 
narrow  and  narrow  and  try  to  hide  truth  that  Job  would 
he  better  without  knowing;  this  little  negative  nose  will 
l)ecome  long  and  self-asserting;  and  this  little  tongue — 
put  out  thy  tongue,  Job" — Job,  awe-struck  under  this 
ceremony,  put  out  a  little  red  tongue  very  timidly — "  this 
tongue,  hardly  bigger  than  a  rose-leaf,  will  get  large  and 
thick,  wag  out  of  season,  do  mischief,  brag  and  cant  for 
gain  or  vanity,  and  cut  as  cruelly,  for  all  its  clumsiness, 
as  if  it  were  a  sharp-edged  blade.     Big  Job  will  perhaps 

be    naughty "      As    Felix,    speaking  with    the    loud 

emphatic  distinctness  habitual  to  him,  brought  out  this 
terribly  familiar  word.  Job's  sense  of  mystification  became 
too  painful:  he  hung  his  lip  and  began  to  cry. 

"See  there,"  said  Mrs.  Holt,  ''you're  frightening  the 
innicent  child  with  such  talk — and  it's  enough  to  frighten 
them  that  think  themselves  the  safest." 

"  Look  here,  Job,  my  man,"  said  Felix,  setting  the  boy 
down  and  turning  him  toward  Esther;  "go  to  Miss  Lyon, 
ask  her  to  smile  at  you,  and  that  will  dry  up  your  tears 
like  the  sunshine." 

Job  put  his  two  brown  fists  on  Esther's  lap,  and  she 
stooped  to  kiss  him.  Then  holding  his  face  between  her 
hands  she  said,  "  Tell  Mr,  Holt  we  don't  mean  to  be 
naughty.  Job.  He  should  believe  in  us  more.  But  now 
I  must  really  go  home." 

Esther  rose  and  held  out  her  hand  to  Mrs.  Holt,  who 
kept  it  while  she  said,  a  little  to  Esther's  confusion  — 

"I  am  very  glad  it's  took  your  fancy  to  come  here  some- 
times, Miss  Lyon.  I  know  you're  thought  to  hold  your 
liead  high,  but  I  speak  of  people  as  I  find  'em.  And  I'm 
sure  anybody  had  need  be  humble  that  comes  where  there'b 
a  floor  like  this — for  I've  put  by  my  best  tea-trays,  they're 
so  out  of  all  charicter  —  I  must  look  Above  for  comfort 
now;  but  I  don't  say  I'm  not  worthv  to  be  called  on  for  all 
that." 

Felix  had  risen  and  moved  toward  the  door  that  he 
might  open  it  and  shield  Esther  from  more  last  words  on 
his  mother's  part. 


212  FELIX  HOLT, 


"Good-bye,  Mr.  Holt/' 

"  Will  Mr.  Lyon  like  me  to  sit  with  him  an  hour  this 
evening,  do  you  think?" 

'MVhy  not?    He  always  likes  to  see  you/^ 

" Then  I  will  come.     Good-bye." 

"  She's  a  very  straight  figure,"  said  Mrs.  Holt.  "  Hor 
she  carries  herself !  But  I  doubt  there's  some  truth  in 
what  our  people  say.  If  she  won't  look  at  young  Muscat, 
it's  the  better  for  liim.  He'd  need  have  a  big  fortune  that 
marries  her." 

"That's  true,  mother,"  said  Felix,  sitting  down, 
snatching  up  little  Job,  and  finding  a  vent  for  some 
unspeakable  feeling  in  the  pretense  of  worrying  him. 

Esther  was  rather  melancholy  as  she  went  home,  yet 
happier  withal  than  she  had  been  for  many  days  before. 
She  thought,  "  I  need  not  mind  having  shown  so  much 
anxiety  :iJ30ut  his  opinion.  He  is  too  clear-sighted  to 
mistake  our  mutual  position;  he  is  quite  above  putting  a 
false  interpretation  on  what  I  have  done.  Besides,  he  had 
not  thought  of  me  at  all — I  saw  that  plainly  enough.  Yet 
he  was  very  kind.  There  is  something  greater  and  better 
in  him  than  I  had  imagined.  His  behavior  to-day  —  to 
his  mother  and  me  too  —  I  should  call  it  the  highest  gen- 
tlemanliness,  only  it  seems  in  him  to  be  something  deeper. 
But  he  has  chosen  an  intolerable  life;  though  I  suppose,  if 
I  had  a  mind  equal  to  his,  and  if  he  loved  me  very  dearly, 
I  should  choose  the  same  life." 

Esther  felt  that  she  had  prefixed  an  impossible  "if"  to 
that  result.  But  now  she  had  known  Felix  her  concep- 
tion of  what  a  happy  love  must  be  had  become  like  a 
dissolving  view,  in  which  the  once -clear  images  were 
gradually  melting  into  new  forms  and  new  colors.  The 
favorite  Byronic  heroes  were  beginning  to  look  something 
like  last  night's  decorations  seen  in  the  sober  dawn.  So 
fast  does  a  little  leaven  spread  within  us — so  incalculable 
is  the  effect  of  one  personality  on  another.  Behind  all 
Esther's  thoughts,  like  an  unacknowledged  yet  constrain- 
ing presence,  there  was  the  sense,  that  if  Felix  Holt  were 
to  love  her,  her  life  would  be  exalted  into  something  quite 
new-— into  a  sort  of  difficult  blessedness,  such  as  one  may 
imagine  in  beings  who  are  conscious  of  painfully  growing 
into  the  possession  of  higher  powers. 

It  was  quite  true  that  Felix  had  not  thought  the  more 
of  Esther  because  of  that  Sunday  afternoon's  interview 
which  had  shaken  her  mind  to  the  vei-y  roots.     He  had 


THE    RADICAL.  213 

avoided  intruding  on  Mr.  Lyon  without  special  reason, 
because  he  believed  tlie  minister  to  be  preoccupied  with 
some  private  care.  He  had  thought  a  great  deal  of  Esther 
with  a  mixture  of  strong  disapproval  and  strong  liking, 
which  both  together  made  a  feeling  the  reverse  of  indiffer- 
ence; but  he  was  not  going  to  let  her  have  any  influence 
on  his  life.  Even  if  his  determination  had  not  been  fixed, 
he  would  have  believed  that  she  would  utterly  scorn  him  in 
any  other  light  than  that  of  an  acquaintance,  and  the 
emotion  she  had  shown  to-day  did  not  change  that  belief. 
But  he  was  deeply  touched  by  this  manifestation  of  her 
better  qualities,  and  felt  that  there  was  a  new  tie  of  friend- 
ship between  them.  That  was  the  brief  history  Eelix 
would  have  given  of  his  relation  to  Esther.  And  he  was 
accustomed  to  observe  himself.  But  very  close  and  dili- 
gent looking  at  living  creatures,  even  through  the  best 
microscope,  will  leave  room  for  new  and  contradictory 
discoveries. 

Felix  found  Mr.  Lyon  particularly  glad  to  talk  to  him. 
The  minister  had  never  yet  disburdened  himself  about  his 
letter  to  Mr.  Philip  Debarry  concerning  the  public  confer- 
ence; and  as  by  this  time  he  had  all  the  heads  of  his, 
discussion  thoroughly  in  his  mind,  it  was  agreeable  to 
recite  them,  as  well  as  to  express  his  regret  that  time  had 
been  lost  by  Mr.  Debarry's  absence  from  the  Manor, 
which  had  prevented  the  immediate  fulfillment  of  his 
pledge. 

"I  don't  see  how  he  can  fulfill  it  if  the  rector  refuses," 
said  Felix,  thinking  it  well  to  moderate  the  little  man's 
confidence. 

"The  rector  is  of  a  spirit  that  will  not  incur  earthly 
impeachment,  and  he  cannot  refuse  what  is  necessary  to 
his  nephew's  honorable  discharge  of  an  obligation,"  said 
Mr.  Lyon.  ''My  young  friend,  it  is  a  case  wherein  the 
prearranged  conditions  tend  by  such  a  beautiful  fitness  to 
the  issue  I  have  sougiit,  that  I  should  have  forever  held 
myself  a  traitor  to  my  charge  had  I  neglected  the  indi- 
cation/' 


214  ?ELIX   HOLT, 


CHAPTEE  XXIII. 

"  I  will  not  excuse  you ;  you  shall  not  be  excused ;  excuses  shall  not  be 
admitted;  there's  no  excuse  shall  serve;  you  shall  not  be  excused."— 
Hjenry  IV. 

Whek  Philip  Debarry  iiad  come  home  that  morning  and 
read  the  letters  which  had  not  been  forwarded  to  him,  he 
laughed  so  heartily  at  Mr.  Lyon's  that  he  congratulated 
himself  on  being  in  his  private  room.  Otherwise  his 
laughter  would  have  awakened  the  curiosity  of  Sir  Max- 
imus,  and  Philip  did  not  wish  to  tell  any  one  the  contents 
of  the  letter  until  he  had  shown  them  to  his  uncle.  He 
determined  to  ride  over  to  the  rectory  to  lunch;  for  as 
Lady  Mary  was  away,  he  and  his  uncle  might  be  tete-d-tete. 

The  rectory  was  on  tlie  other  side  of  the  river,  close 
to  the  church  of  which  it  was  the  fitting  companion :  a 
fine  old  brick-aud-stono  house,  with  a  great  bow-Avindow 
opening  from  the  library  on  to  the  deep-turfed  lawn, 
one  fat  dog  sleeping  on  the  door-stone,  another  fat  dog 
waddling  on  the  gravel,  the  autumn  leaves  duly  swept 
away,  the  lingering  chrysanthemums  cherished,  tall  trees 
stooping  or  soaring  in  the  most  picturesque  variety,  and  a 
Virginian  creeper  turning  a  little  rustic  hut  into  a  scarlet 
pavilion.  It  was  one  of  those  rectories  which  are  among 
the  bulwarks  of  our  venerable  institutions — which  arrest 
disintegrating  doubt,  serve  as  a  double  enbankment  against 
Popery  and  Dissent,  and  rally  feminine  instinct  and  affec- 
tion to  reinforce  the  decisions  of  masculine  thought. 

''What  makes  you  look  so  merry,  Phill?"  said  the 
rector,  as  his  nephew  entered  the  pleasant  library. 

"  Something  that  concerns  you,"  said  Philip,  taking  out 
the  letter.  "A  clerical  challenge.  Here's  an  opportunity 
for  you  to  emulate  the  divines  of  the  sixteenth  century  and 
have  a  theological  duel.     Eead  this  letter." 

"What  answer  have  you  sent  the  crazy  little  fellow?" 
said  the  rector,  keeping  the  letter  in  his  hand  and  running 
over  it  again  and  again,  Avith  brow  knit,  but  eyes  gleaming 
without  any  malignity. 

"  Oh,  I  sent  no  answer.     I  awaited  yours." 

"Mine!"  said  the  rector,  throwing  down  the  letter  on 
the  table.  "  You  don't  suppose  I'm  going  to  hold  a  public 
debate  with  a  schismatic  of  that  sort?  I  should  have  an 
infidel  shoemaker  next  expecting  me  to  answer  blasphe- 
mies delivered  in  bad  grammar." 


THE    RADICAL.  215 

"  But  you  see  how  lie  puts  it,"  said  Philip.  With  all 
his  grayity  of  nature  he  coukl  not  resist  a  slightly  mis- 
chievous prompting,  though  he  had  a  serious  feeling  that 
he  should  not  like  to  be  regarded  as  failing  to  fulfill  his 
pledge.  "  I  think  if  you  refuse,  I  shall  be  obliged  to  offer 
myself." 

''  Nonsense!  Tell  him  he  is  himself  acting  a  dishonor- 
able part  in  interpreting  your  words  as  a  pledge  to  do 
any  preposterous  thing  that  suits  his  fancy.  Suppose  he 
had  asked  you  to  give  him  land  to  build  a  chapel  on; 
doubtless  that  would  have  given  him  a  'lively  satisfac- 
tion.' A  man  who  puts  a  non-natural,  strained  sense  on  a 
promise  is  no  better  than  a  robber." 

"  But  he  has  not  asked  for  land.  I  dare  say  he  thinks 
you  won't  object  to  his  proposal.  I  confess  there's  a 
simplicity  and  quaintness  about  the  letter  that  rather 
pleases  me." 

"  Let  me  tell  you,  Phil,  he's  a  crazy  little  firefly,  that 
does  a  great  deal  of  harm  in  my  parish.  He  inflames  the 
Dissenters'  minds  on  politics.  There's  no  end  to  the  mis- 
chief done  by  these  busy,  prating  men.  They  make  the 
ignorant  multitude  the  judges  of  the  largest  questions, 
both  political  and  religious,  till  we  shall  soon  have  no  insti- 
tution left  that  is  not  on  a  level  with  the  comprehension 
of  a  huckster  or  a  dj-ayman.  There  can  be  nothing  more 
retrograde — losing  all  the  results  of  civilization,  all  the 
lessons  of  Providence — letrtiug  the  windlass  run  down  after 
men  have  been  turning  at  it  jminfully  for  generations.  If 
the  instructed  are  not  to  judge  for  the  uninstructed,  why, 
let  us  set  Dick  Stubbs  to  make  our  almanacs,  and  have  a 
President  of  the  Royal  Society  elected  by  universal 
suffrage." 

The  rector  had  risen,  placed  himself  with  his  back  to 
the  fire,  and  thrust  his  hands  in  his  pockets,  ready  to 
insist  further  on  this  wide  argument.  Philip  sat  nursing 
one  leg,  listening  respectfully,  as  he  always  did,  though 
often  listening  to  the  sonorous  echo  of  his  own  statements, 
which  suited  his  uncle's  needs  so  exactly  that  he  did  not 
distinguish  them  from  his  old  impressions. 

'* True,"  said  Philip;  "but  in  special  cases  we  have  to 
do  with  special  conditions.  You  know  I  defend  the  casu- 
ists. And  it  may  happen  that,  for  the  honor  of  the  church 
in  Treby,  and  a  little  also  for  my  honor,  circumstances 
may  demand  a  concession  even  to  some  notions  of  a  Dis- 
senting preacher." 


21G  FELIX    HOLT, 

"Not  at  all.  I  should  be  making  a  figure  which  my 
brother  clergy  might  well  take  as  an  affront  to  themselves. 
The  character  of  the  Establishment  has  suffered  enough 
already  through  the  Evangelicals,  with  their  extempore 
incoherence  and  their  pipe-smoking  piety.  Look  at  Wim- 
ple, the  man  who  is  vicar  of  Shuttleton — without  his 
gown  and  bands  anybody  would  take  him  for  a  grocer  in 
mourning." 

"Well,  I  shall  cut  a  still  worse  figure,  and  so  will  you, 
in  the  Dissenting  magazines  and  newspapers.  It  will  go 
the  round  of  the  kingdom.  There  will  be  a  paragraph 
headed,  '  Tory  Falsehood  and  Clerical  Cowardice,'  or  else, 
'  The  Meanness  of  the  Aristocracy  and  the  Incompetence 
of  the  Beneficed  Clergy.'" 

"There  would  be  a  worse  paragraph  if  I  were  to  consent 
to  the  debate.  Of  course  it  would  be  said  that  I  Avas 
beaten  hollow,  and,  that  now  the  question  had  been  cleared 
up  at  Treby  Magna,  tlie  Church  liad  not  a  sound  leg  to 
stand  on.  Besides,"  the  rector  went  on,  frowning  and 
smiling,  "it's  all  very  well  for  you  to  talk,  Phil;  but  this 
debating  is  not  so  easy  when  a  man's  close  npon  sixty 
What  'one  writes  or  sa)^s  must  be  something  good  and 
scholarly;  and,  after  all  had  been  done,  this  little  Lyon 
would  buzz  about  one  like  a  wasp,  and  cross-question  and 
rejoin.  Let  me  tell  you,  a  plain  trnth  may  be  so  worried 
and  mauled  by  fallacies  as  to  get  the  worst  of  it.  There's 
no  such  thing  as  tiring  a  talking  machine  like  Lyon." 

"Then  you  absolutely  refuse?" 

"Yes,  I  do." 

"You  remember  that  when  I  wrote  my  letter  of  thanks 
to  Lyon  you  approved  my  offer  to  serve  him  if  possible." 

"Certainly  I  remember  it.  But  suj)pose  he  had  asked 
you  to  vote  for  civil  marriage,  or  to  go  and  hear  him 
preach  every  Sunday?" 

"  But  he  has  not  asked  that." 

"Something  as  unreasonable,  though." 

"  Well,"  said  Philip,  taking  up  Mr.  Lyon's  letter  and 
looking  graver — ^looking  even  vexed,  "it  is  rather  an 
unpleasant  business  for  me.  I  really  felt  obliged  to  him. 
I  think  there's  a  sort  of  worth  in  the  man  beyond  his  class. 
Whatever  may  be  the  reason  of  the  case,  I  shall  disappoint 
him  instead  of  doing  him  the  service  I  offered." 

"Well,  that's  a  misfortune;  we  can't  help  it." 

"  Tlie  worst  of  it  is,  I  should  be  insulting  him  to  say, 
*  I  will  do  anything  else,  but  not  just  this  tliat  you  want.'' 


THE  KADICAL.  217 

lie  evideutl}^  feels  himself  in  company  witli  Luther  and 
Zwingle  and  Calvin,  and  considers  our  letters  part  of  the 
history  of  Protestantism." 

"Yes,  yes.  I  know  it's  rather  an  unpleasant  thing, 
Phil.  You  are  aware  that  I  would  have  done  anything  in 
reason  to  prevent  you  from  becoming  unpopular  here.  I 
consider  your  character  a  possession  to  all  of  us." 

*'  I  think  I  must  call  on  him  forthwith  and  explain  and 
apologize. "' 

"Xo,  sit  still;  Fve  thought  of  something,"  said  the 
rector,  with  a  sudden  revival  of  spirits.  "  Tve  just  seen 
Sherlock  comins;  in.  He  is  to  lunch  with  me  to-dav.  It 
would  do  no  harm  for  him  to  hold  the  debate  —  a  curate 
and  a  young  man  — he'll  gain  by  it;  and  it  would  release 
you  from  any  awkwardness,  Phil.  Sherlock  is  not  going 
to  stay  here  long,  you  know;  he'll  soon  have  his  title.  I'll 
put  the  thing  to  him.  He  won't  object  if  I  wish  it.  It's 
a  cajDital  idea.  It  will  do  Sherlock  good.  He's  a  clever 
fellow,  but  he  wants  confidence." 

Philija  had  not  time  to  object  before  Mr.  Sherlock 
appeared — a  young  divine -of  good  birth  and  figure,  of  sal- 
low complexion  and  bashful  address. 

"  Sherlock,  you  have  come  in  most  opportunely,"  said 
the  rector.  "  A  case  has  turned  up  in  the  parish  in  which 
you  can  be  of  eminent  use.  I  know  that  is  what  you  have 
desired  ever  since  you  have  been  with  me.  But  I'm  about 
so  much  myself  that  there  really  has  not  been  sphere 
enough  for  you.  You  are  a  studious  man,  I  know;  I  dare 
say  you  have  all  the  necessary  matter  prepared  —  at  your 
finger-ends,  if  not  on  paper." 

Mr.  Sherlock  smiled  with  rather  a  trembling  lip,  willing  to 
distinguish  himself,  but  hoping  that  the  rector  only  alluded 
to  a  dialogue  on  Baptism  by  Aspersion,  or  some  other 
pamphlet  suited  to  the  purposes  of  the  Christian  Knowl- 
edge Society.  But  as  the  rector  proceeded  to  unfold  the 
circumstances  under  which  his  eminent  service  was  to  be 
rendered,  he  grew  more  and  more  nervous. 

"You'll  oblige  me  very  much,  Slierlock,"  the  rector 
ended,  "by  going  into  this  thing  zealously.  Can  you 
guess  what  time  you  will  require?  because  it  will  rest  with 
us  to  fix  the  day." 

"I  should  be  rejoiced  to  oblige  you,  Mr.  Debarry,  but 
I  really  think  I  am  not  competent  to " 

"That's  your  modesty,  Sherlock.  Don't  let  me  hear 
any  more  of  that.     I  know  Filmore  of  Corpus  said  you 


318  FELIX   HOLT, 

miglit  be  a  first-rate  man  if  your  diffidence  didn't  do  you 
injustice.  And  you  can  refer  anything  to  me,  you  know. 
Come,  you  will  set  about  the  thing  at  once.  But,  Phil, 
you  must  tell  the  preacher  to  send  a  scheme  of  the 
debate  —  all  the  different  heads  —  and  he  must  agree  to 
keep  rigidly  Avithin  the  scheme.  There,  sit  down  at  my 
desk  and  write  the  letter  now;  Thomas  shall  carry  it." 

Philip  sat  down  to  write,  and  the  rector,  with  his  firm 
ringing  voice,  went  on  at  his  ease,  giving  ''indications" 
to  his  agitated  curate. 

"But  you  can  begin  at  once  preparing  a  good,  cogent, 
clear  statement,  and  considering  the  probable  points  of 
assault.  You  can  look  into  Jewel,  Hall,  Hooker,  Whit- 
gift,  and  the  rest:  you'll  find  them  all  here.  My  library 
wants  nothing  in  English  divinity.  Sketch  the  lower 
ground  taken  by  Usher  and  those  men,  but  bring  all  your 
force  to  bear  on  marking  out  the  true  High-Church  doc- 
trine. Expose  the  wretched  cavils  of  the  Nonconformists, 
and  the  noisy  futility  that  belongs  to  schismatics  generally. 
I  will  give  you  a  telling  passage  from  Burke  on  the 
Dissenters,  and  some  good  quotations  which  I  brought 
together  in  two  sermons  of  my  own  on  the  Position  of  the 
English  Church  in  Christendom.  How  long  do  you  think 
it  will  take  you  to  bring  your  thoughts  together?  You 
can  throw  them  afterward  into  the  form  of  an  essay; 
we'll  have  the  thing  printed;  it  will  do  you  good  with  the 
Bishop." 

With  all  Mr.  Sherlock's  timidity,  there  was  fascination 
for  him  in  this  distinction.  He  reflected  that  he  could 
take  coffee  and  sit  up  late,  and  perhaps  produce  something 
rather  fine.  It  might  be  a  first  step  toward  that  eminence 
which  it  was  no  more  than  his  duty  to  aspire  to.  Even  a 
polemical  fame  like  that  of  a  Philpotts  must  have  had 
a  beginning.  Mr.  Sherlock  was  not  insensible  to  the 
pleasure  of  turning  sentences  successfully,  and  it  was  a 
pleasure  not  always  unconnected  with  preferment.  A 
diffident  man  likes  the  idea  of  doing  something  remarka- 
ble, which  Avill  create  belief  in  him  without  any  immediate 
display  of  brilliancy.  Celebrity  may  blush  and  be  silent, 
and  win  a  grace  the  more.  Thus  Mr.  Sherlock  was  con- 
strained, trembling  all  the  while,  and  much  wishing  that 
his  essay  were  already  in  print. 

"I  think  I  could  hardly  be  ready  under  a  fortnight." 

"Very  good.  .Just  write  that,  Phil,  and  tell  him  to  fix 
the  precise  day  and  place.     And  then  we'll  go  to  lunch.'* 


THE    RADICAL.  319 

The  rector  was  quite  satistiecl.  He  had  talked  himself 
into  tliinkiiig  that  he  should  like  to  give  Sherlock  a  few 
useful  hints,  look  up  his  own  earlier  sermons,  and  benefit 
the  curate  by  his  criticism,  when  the  argument  had  been 
got  into  shape.  He  was  a  healthy-natured  man,  but  that 
was  not  at  all  a  reason  why  he  should  not  have  those  sensi- 
bilities  to  the  odor  of  authorship  which  belong  to  almost 
everybody  who  is  not  expected  to  be  a  writer — and  espe- 
cially to  that  form  of  authorship  which  is  called  suggestion, 
and  consists  in  telling  another  man  that  he  might  do  a 
great  deal  with  a  given  subject,  by  bringing  a  sufficient 
amount  of  knowledge,  reasoning,  and  wit  to  bear  upon  it. 

Philip  would  have  had  some  twinges  of  conscience  about 
the  curate,  if  he  had  not  guessed  that  the  honor  thrust 
upon  him  was  not  altogether  disagreeable.  The  Church 
might  perhaps  have  had  a  stronger  supporter;  but  for 
himself,  he  had  done  what  he  was  bound  to  do:  he  had 
done  his  best  toward  fulfilling  Mr.  Lyon's  desire. 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 

If  he  come  not,  the  play  is  marred.— Midsummer  NighVs  Dream. 

RuFUS  Lyon  was  very  happy  on  that  mild  November 
morning  appointed  for  the  great  conference  in  the  larger 
room  at  the  Free  School,  between  himself  and  the  Rev- 
erend Theodore  Sherlock,  B.A.  The  disappointment  of 
not  contending  with  the  rector  in  person,  which  had  at 
first  been  bitter,  had  been  gradually  lost  sight  of  in  the 
positive  enjoyment  of  an  opportunity  for  debating  on  any 
terms.  Mr.  Lyon  had  two  grand  elements  of  pleasure  on 
such  occasions:  confidence  in  the  strength  of  his  case,  and 
confidence  in  his  own  power  of  advocacy.  Not  —  to  use 
his  own  phrase  —  not  that  he  '^^ glorified  himself  herein"; 
for  speech  and  exposition  were  so  easy  to  him,  that  if  he 
argued  forcibly,  he  believed  it  to  be  simply  because  the 
truth  was  forcible.  He  Avas  not  proud  of  moving  easil}' 
in  his  native  medium.  A  panting  man  thinks  of  himself 
as  a  clever  swimmer;  but  a  fish  swims  much  better,  and 
takes  his  performance  as  a  matter  of  course. 

Whether  Mr.  Sherlock  were  that  panting,  self-gratulating 
man,  remained  a  secret.     Philip  Debarry,  much  occupied 


220  I'ELIX   HOLT, 

with  his  electioneering  affairs,  had  only  once  had  an  oppor- 
tunity of  asking  his  uncle  how  Sherlock  got  on,  and  the 
rector  had  said,  curtly,  "  I  think  he'll  do.  I've  supplied 
him  well  with  references.  I  advise  him  to  read  only,  and 
decline  everything  else  as  out  of  order.  Lyon  will  speak 
to  a  point,  and  then  Sherlock  will  read:  it  will  be  all  the 
more  telling.  It  will  give  variety."  But  on  this  particular 
morning  peremj^tory  business  connected  with  the  magis- 
tracy called  the  rector  away. 

Due  notice  had  been  given,  and  the  feminine  world  of 
Treby  Magna  was  much  more  agitated  by  the  prosj^ect 
than  by  that  of  any  candidate's  speech.  Mrs.  Pendrell  at 
the  Bank,  Mrs.  Tiliot,  and  the  church  ladies  generally  felt 
bound  to  licar  the  curate,  who  was  known,  apparently  by 
an  intuition  concerning  the  nature  of  curates,  to  be  a 
very  clever  young  man;  and  he  would  show  them  what 
learning  had  to  say  on  the  right  side.  One  or  two  Dis- 
senting ladies  were  not  without  emotion  at  the  thought 
that,  seated  on  the  front  benches,  they  should  be  brought 
near  to  old  church  friends,  and  have  a  longer  greeting  than 
had  taken  place  since  the  Catholic  Emancipation.  Mrs. 
Muscat,  who  had  been  a  beauty,  and  was  as  nice  in  her 
millinery  as  any  Trebian  lady,  belonging  to  the  Establish- 
ment reflected  that  she  should  put  on  her  best  large 
embroidered  collar,  and  that  she  should  ask.  Mrs.  Tiliot 
where  it  was  in  DuflBeld  that  she  once  got  Tier  bed-hang- 
ings dyed  so  beautifully.  When  Mrs.  Tiliot  was  Mary  Salt, 
the  two  ladies  had  been  bosom  frieruds;  but  Mr.  Tiliot  had 
looked  higher  and  higher  since  his  gin  had  become  so 
famous;  and  in  the  year  '29  he  had,  in  Mr.  Muscat's  hear- 
ing, spoken  of  Dissenters  as  sneaks — a  joersonality  which 
could  not  be  overlooked. 

The  debate  was  to  begin  at  eleven,  for  the  rector  would 
not  allow  the  evening  to  be  chosen,  when  low  men  and 
boys  might  want  to  be  admitted  out  of  mere  mischief. 
This  was  one  reason  why  the  female  part  of  the  audience 
outnumbered  the  males.  But  some  chief  Trebians  were 
there,  even  men  whose  means  made  them  as  independent 
of  theory  as  Mr.  Pendrell  and  Mr.  Wace;  encouraged  by 
reflecting  that  they  were  not  in  a  place  of  worship,  and 
would  not  be  obliged  to  stay  longer  than  they  chose. 
There  was  a  muster  of  all  Dissenters  who  could  spare  the 
morning  time,  and  on  the  back  benches  were  all  the  aged 
Church  women  who  shared  the  remnants  of  the  sacrament 
wine,  and  who  were  humbly  anxious  to  neglect  nothing 


THE   KADIGAL.  221 

ecclesiastical  or  connected  witli  'Agoing  to  a  better 
place." 

At  eleven  the  arrival  of  listeners  seemed  to  have  ceased. 
Mr.  Lyon  Avas  seated  on  the  school  tribune  or  dais  at  his 
particular  round  table;  another  round  table,  with  a  chair, 
awaited  the  curate,  with  whose  superior  position  it  was 
quite  in  keeping  that  he  should  not  be  the  first  on  the 
ground.  A  couple  of  extra  chairs  were  placed  farther 
back,  and  more  than  one  important  personage  had  been 
requested  to  act  as  chairman;  but  no  Churchman  would 
place  himself  in  a  position  so  equivocal  as  to  dignity  of 
aspect,  and  so  unequivocal  as  to  the  obligation  of  sitting- 
out  the  discussion;  and  the  rector  had  beforehand  put  a 
veto  on  any  Dissenting  chairman. 

Mr.  Lyon  sat  patiently  absorbed  in  his  thoughts,  with 
his  notes  in  minute  handwriting  lying  before  him,  seeming 
to  look  at  the  audience,  but  not  seeing  them.  Every  one 
else  was  contented  that  there  should  be  an  interval  in  which 
there  could  be  a  little  neighborly  talk. 

Esther  was  particularly  happy,  seated  on  a  side-bench 
near  her  father's  side  of  the  tribune,  with  Felix  close 
behind  her,  so  that  she  could  turn  her  head  and  talk  to 
him.  He  had  been  very  kind  ever  since  that  morning 
when  she  had  called  at  his  home,  more  disposed  to  listen 
indulgently  to  what  she  had  to  say,  and  less  blind  to  her 
looks  and  movements.  If  he  had  never  railed  at  her  or 
ignored  her,  she  would  have  been  less  sensitive  to  the 
attention  he  gave  her;  but  as  it  was,  the  prospect  of  seeing 
him  seemed  to  light  up  her  life,  and  to  disperse  the  old 
dullness.  She  looked  unusually  charming  to-day,  from  the 
very  fact  that  she  was  not  vividly  conscious  of  tinything 
but  of  having  a  mind  near  her  that  asked  her  to  be  some- 
thing better  than  she  actually  Avas.  The  consciousness  of 
her  own  superiority  amongst  the  people  around  her  was 
superseded,  and  even  a  few  brief  weeks  had  given  a  soft- 
ened expression  to  her  eyes,  a  more  feminine  beseeching- 
ness  and  self-doubt  to  her  manners.  Perhaps,  however, 
a  little  new  defiance  was  rising  in  place  of  the  old  con- 
tempt— defiance  of  the  Trebian  views  about  Felix  Holt. 

"  What  a  very  nice-looking  young  woman  your  minis- 
ter's daughter  is!"  said  Mrs.  Tiliot  in  an  undertone  to 
Mrs.  Muscat,  Avho,  as  she  had  hoped,  had  found  a  seat 
next  to  her  quondam  friend — ''quite  the  lady." 

"Rather  too  much  so,  considering,"  said  Mrs.  Muscat. 
''She's  thought  proud,  and  that's  not  pretty  in  a  girl,  even 


222  I'ELiX    liOLT, 

if  there  was  anything  to  back  it  up.  But  now  she  seems 
to  be  encouraging  tliat  young  Holt,  who  scoffs  at  every- 
thing, as  you  may  judge  by  his  appearance.  She  has 
despised  his  betters  before  now;  but  I  leave  you  to  judge 
whether  a  young  man  who  has  taken  to  low  ways  of  get- 
ting his  living  can  pay  for  fine  cambric  handkerchiefs  and 
light  kid  gloves." 

Mrs.  Muscat  lowered  her  blonde  eyelashes  and  swayed  her 
neat  head  just  perceptibly  from  side  to  side,  with  a  sincere 
desire  to  be  moderate  in  her  expressions,  notwithstanding 
any  shock  that  facts  might  have  given  her. 

''Dear,  dear,"  said  Mrs.  Tiliot.  "What!  that  is  young 
Holt  leaning  forward  now  without  a  cravat?  I've  never 
seen  him  before  to  notice  him,  but  I've  heard  Tiliot  talk- 
ing about  him.  They  say  he's  a  dangerous  character,  and 
goes  stirring  up  the  workingmen  at  Sproxton.  And  — 
well,  to  be  sure,  such  great  eyes  and  such  a  great  head  of 
hair  —  it  is  enough  to  frighten  one.  What  can  she  see  in 
him?     Quite  below  her." 

"  Yes,  and  brought  up  a  governess,"  said  Mrs.  Muscat; 
"you'd  have  thought  she'd  know  better  how  to  choose. 
But  the  minister  has  let  her  get  the  upper  hand  sadly  too 
much.  It's  a  pity  in  a  man  of  God.  I  don't  deny  he'vj 
that." 

"  Well,  I  am  sorry,"  said  Mrs.  Tiliot,  "  for  I  meant  hei 
to  give  my  girls  lessons  when  they  came  from  school." 

Mr.  Wace  and  Mr.  Pendrell  meanwhile  were  standing 
up  and  looking  round  at  the  audience,  nodding  to  their 
fellow-townsjDCople  with  the  affability  due  from  men  in 
their  position. 

"  It's  time  he  came  now,"  said  Mr.  Wace,  looking  at  his 
Avatch  and  comparing  it  with  the  schoolroom  clock.  "  This 
debating  is  a  neAV-fangled  sort  of  thing;  but  the  rector  would 
never  have  given  in  to  it  if  there  luidn't  been  good  reasons. 
Nolan  said  he  wouldn't  come.  He  suys  this  debating  is  an 
atheistical  sort  of  thing;  the  Atheists  are  very  fond  of  it. 
Theirs  is  a  bad  book  to  take  a  leaf  out  of.  However,  we 
shall  liear  nothing  but  what's  good  from  Mr.  Sherlock.  He 
preaches  a  capital  sermon — for  such  a  young  man." 

"Well,  it  was  our  duty  to  support  him  —  not  to  leave 
him  alone  among  ihe  Dissenters,"  said  Mr.  Pendrell. 
•'  You  see,  everybody  hasn't  felt  that.  Labron  might 
have  shown  himself,  if  not  Lukyn.  I  could  have  alleged 
business  myself  if  I  had  thoughfproper." 

*'  Here  he  comes,  I  think/"   said   Mr.    Wace,    turning 


THE   EADICAL.  323 

round  on  hearing  a  movement  near  the  small  door  on  a 
level  with  the  platform.  "By  George!  it's  Mr.  Debarry. 
Come  now,  this  is  handsome." 

Mr.  Wace  and  Mr.  Pendrell  clajoped  their  hands,  and 
the  example  was  followed  even  by  most  of  the  Dissenters. 
Philip  was  aware  that  he  was  doing  a  popular  thing,  of  a 
kind  that  Treby  was  not  used  to  from  the  elder  Debarrys; 
but  his  appearance  had  not  been  long  premeditated.  He 
Avas  driving  through  the  town  toward  an  engagement  at 
some  distance,  but  on  calling  at  Labron's  office  he  had 
found  that  the  affair  which  demanded  his  presence  had 
been  deferred,  and  so  had  driven_  round  to  the  Free 
School.     Christian  came  in  behind  him. 

Mr.  Lyon  was  now  roused  from  his  abstraction,  and, 
stepping  from  his  slight  elevation,  begged_  Mr.  Debarry  to 
act  as  moderator  or  president  on  the  occasion. 

'^With  all  my  heart/'  said  Philip.  ''But  Mr.  Sherlock 
has  not  arrived,  apparently?" 

"  He  tarries  somewhat  unduly,"  said  Mr.  Lyon.  "  Nev- 
ertheless there  may  be  a  reason  of  which  we  know  not. 
Shall  I  collect  the  thoughts  of  the  assembly  by  a  brief 
introductory  address  in  the  interval?" 

"No,  no,  no,"  said  Mr.  Wace,  who  saw  a  limit  to  bis 
pov/ers  of  endurance.  "  Mr.  Sherlock  is  sure  to  be  here 
in  a  minute  or  two." 

"Christian,"  said  Philip  Debarry,  who  felt  a  slight 
misgiving,  "just  be  so  good— but  stay,  I'll  go  myself. 
Excuse  me,  gentlemen:  I'll  drive  round  to  Mr.  Sherlock's 
lodgings.  He  may  be  under  a  little  mistake  as  to  tbe 
time.  Studious  men  are  sometimes  rather  absent.  You 
needii't  come  with  me,  Christian." 

As  Mr.  Debarry  went  out,  Rufus  Lyon  stepped  on  to  the 
tribune  again  in" rather  an  uneasy  state  of  mind.  A  few 
ideas  had  occurred  to  him,  eminently  fitted  to  engage  the 
audience  profitably,  and  so  to  wrest  some  edification  out 
of  an  unforeseen  delay.  But  his  native  delicacy  made 
liim  feel  that  in  this  "assembly  the  Church  people  miglit 
fairly  decline  any  "deliverance"  on  bis  part  which 
exceeded  the  programme,  and  Mr.  Wace's  negative  had 
been  energetic.  But  the  little  man  suffered  from_  impris- 
oned ideas,  and  was  as  restless  as  a  racer  held  in.  He 
could  not  sit  down  again,  but  walked  backward  and  for- 
ward, stroking  his  cliin,  emitting  liis  low  guttural  inter- 
jection under  the  pressure  of  clauses  and  sentences  which 
he  longed  to  utter  aloud,  as  he  would  have  done  in  his  own 


234  FELIX   HOLT, 

study.  There  was  a  low  buzz  in  the  room  which  helped 
to  deepen  the  minister's  sense  that  the  thoughts  within 
him  were  as  divine  messengers  unheeded  or  rejected  by  a 
trivial  generation.  Many  of  the  audience  were  standing, 
all,  except  the  old  Churchwomen  on  the  back  seats,  and  a 
few  devout  Dissenters  who  kept  tlieir  eyes  shut  and  gave 
their  bodies  a  gentle  oscillating  motion,  were  interested 
in  chat. 

"Your  father  is  uneasy/'  said  Felix  to  Esther. 

*' Yes;  and  now,  I  think,  he  is  feeling  for  his  spectacles. 
I  hope  he  has  not  left  them  at  home:  he  will  not  be  able 
to  see  anything  two  yards  before  him  without  them; — and 
it  makes  him  so  unconscious  of  what  people  expect  or 
want." 

"I'll  go  and  ask  him  whether  he  has  them,"  said  Felix, 
striding  over  the  form  in  front  of  him,  and  approaching 
Mr.  Lyon,  whose  face  showed  a  gleam  of  pleasure  at  this 
relief  from  his  abstracted  isolation. 

"  Miss  Lyon  is  afraid  that  you  are  at  a  loss  for  your  spec- 
tacles, sir,"  said  Felix. 

"  My  dear  young  friend,"  said  Mr.  Lyon,  laying  his  hand 
on  Felix  Holt's  fore-arm,  which  was  about  on  a  level  with 
the  minister's  shoulder,  "it  is  a  very  glorious  truth,  albeit 
made  somewhat  jiainful  to  me  by  the  circumstances  of  the 
present  moment,  that  as  a  counterpoise  to  the  brevity  of 
our  mortal  life  (wherein,  as  I  apprehend,  our  powers  are 
being  trained  not  only  for  the  transmission  of  an  improved 
heritage,  as  I  have  heard  you  insist,  but  also  for  our  own 
entrance  into  a  higher  initiation  in  the  Divine  scheme) — 
it  is,  I  say,  a  very  glorious  truth,  that  even  in  what  are 
called  the  waste  minutes  of  our  time,  like  those  of  expec- 
tation, the  soul  may  soar  and  range,  as  in  some  of  our 
dreams  which  are  brief  as  a  broken  rainbow  in  duration, 
yet  seem  to  comprise  a  long  history  of  terror  or  joy.  And 
again,  each  moment  may  be  a  beginning  of  a  new  spiritual 
energy;  and  our  pulse  would  doubtless  be  a  coarse  and 
clumsy  notation  of  the  passage  from  that  which  was  not 
to  that  which  is,  even  in  the  finer  processes  of  the  material 
world — and  how  much  more " 

Esther  was  watching  her  father  and  Felix,  and  though 
she  was  not  witliin  hearing  of  what  was  being  said,  she 
guessed  the  actual  state  of  the  case — that  the  inquiry  about 
the  spectacles  had  been  unheeded,  and  that  her  father  was 
losing  himself  and  embarrassing  Felix  in  the  intricacies  of 
a  dissertation.     There  was  not  the  stillness  around  her  that 


THE    RADICAL.  225 

would  'have  made  a  movement  on  her  part  seem  conspicu- 
ous, and  she  was  impelled  by  her  anxiety  to  step  on  the 
tribune  and  walk  up  to  her  father,  who  paused  a  little 
Btartled. 

"Pray  see  whether  you  have  forgotten  your  spectacles,, 
father.     If  so,  I  will  go  home  at  once  and  look  for  them." 

Mr.  Lyon  Avas  automatically  obedient  to  Esther,  and  he 
began  immediately  to  feel  his  pockets. 

''How  is  it  that  Miss  Jermj-n  is  so  friendly  wath  the 
Dissenting  parson?"  said  Christian  to  Quorlen,  the  Tory 
printer,  who  was  an  intimate  of  his.  "  Those  grand  Jer- 
myns  are  not  Dissenters  surely?" 

"  What  Miss  Jermyn?" 

*'Why — don't  you  see? — that  fine  girl  who  is  talking  to 
him." 

"  Miss    Jermyn!      Why,    that's    the    little     parson's 
laughter." 

"His  daughter!"  Christian  gave  a  low  brief  whistle, 
which  seemed  a  natural  expression  of  surprise  that  "the 
rusty  old  ranter  "  should  have  a  daughter  of  such  distin- 
guished appearance. 

Meanwhile  the  search  for  the  spectacles  had  proved  vain. 
"  'Tis  a  grievous  fault  in  me,  my  dear,"  said  the  little  man, 
humbly;  "I  become   thereby  sadly  burdensome  to  you." 

"I  will  go  at  once,"  said  Esther,  refusing  to  let  Felix 
go  instead  of  her.  But  she  had  scarcely  stepped  off  the 
tribune  when  Mr.  Debarry  re-entered,  and  there  was 
a  commotion  which  made  her  wait.  After  a  low-toned 
conversation  with  Mr.  Pendrell  and  Mr.  Wace,  Philip 
Debarry  stepped  on  to  the  tribune  with  his  hat  in  his  hand 
and  said,  with  an  air  of  much  concern  and  annoyance — 

"I  am  sorry  to  have  to  tell  you,  ladies  and  gentlemen, 
that — doubtless  owing  to  some  accidental  cause  which  I 
trust  will  soon  be  explained  as  nothing  serious — Mr.  Sher- 
lock is  absent  from  his  residence  and  is  not  to  be  found. 
He  went  out  early,  his  landlady  informs  me,  to  refresh 
himself  by  a  walk  on  this  agreeable  morning,  as  is  his 
habit,  she  tells  me,  when  he  has  been  kept  up  late  by 
study;  and  he  has  not  returned.  Do  not  let  us  be  too 
anxious.  I  shall  cause  inquiry  to  be  made  in  the  direction 
of  his  walk.  It  is  easy  to  imagine  many  accidents,  not  of 
a  grave  character,  by  which  he  might  nevertheless  be 
absolutely  detained  against  his  will.  tJnder  these  circum- 
stances, Mr,  Lyon,"  continued  Philip,  turning  to  the 
minister,  "  I  presume  that  the  debate  must  be  adjourned.'* 

15 


226  FELIX   HOLT, 

"The  debate,  doubtless,"  began  Mr.  Lyon;  but  his 
further  speech  was  drowned  by  a  general  rising  of  the 
Church  people  from  their  seats,  many  of  them  feeling  that, 
even  if  the  cause  were  lamentable,  the  adjournment  was 
not  altogether  disagreeable. 

"  Good  gracious  me  !  "  said  Mrs.  Tiliot,  as  she  took  her 
husband's  arm,  "  I  hope  the  poor  young  man  hasn't  fallen 
into  the  river  or  broken  his  leg.'' 

But  some  of  the  more  acrid  Dissenters,  whose  temper 
was  not  controlled  by  the  habits  of  retail  business,  had 
begun  to  hiss,  implying  that  in  their  interpretation  the 
curate's  absence  had  not  depended  on  any  injury  to  life 
or  limb. 

"  He's  turned  tail,  sure  enough,"  said  Mr»  Muscat  to  the 
neighbor  behind  him,  lifting  his  eyebrows  and  shoulders, 
and  laughing  in  a  way  that  showed  that,  deacon  as  he  wais, 
he  looked  at  the  affair  in  an  entirely  secular  light. 

But  Mrs.  Muscat  thought  it  would  be  nothing  but  right 
to  have  all  the  waters  dragged,  agreeing  in  this  with  the 
majority  of  the  Church  ladies. 

**I  regret  sincerely,  Mr.  Lyon,"  said  Philip  Debarry, 
addressing  the  minister  with  politeness,  'Hhat  I  must  say 
good-morning  to  you,  with  the  sense  that  I  have  not  been 
able  at  present  to  contribute  to  your  satisfaction  as  I  had 
wished." 

"  Speak  not  of  it  in  the  way  of  apology,  sir/'  said  Mr. 
Lyon,  in  a  tone  of  depression.  "  I  doubt  not  that  you 
yourself  have  acted  in  good  faith.  Nor  will  I  open  any 
door  of  egress  to  constructions  such  as  anger  often  deems 
ingenious,  but  which  the  disclosure  of  the  simple  truth 
may  expose  as  erroneous  and  uncharitable  fabrications.  I 
wish  you  good-morning,  sir." 

When  tiie  room  was  cleared  of  the  Church  people,  Mr. 
Lyon  wished  to  soothe  his  own  spirit  and  that  of  his  flock 
by  a  few  reflections  introductory  to  a  parting  prayer.  But 
there  was  a  general  resistance  to  this  effort.  The  men 
mustered  round  the  minister  and  declared  their  opinion 
that  the  whole  thing  was  disgraceful  to  the  Church. 
Some  said  the  curate's  absence  had  been  contrived  from 
the  first.  Others  more  than  hinted  that  it  had  been  a 
folly  in  Mr.  Lyon  to  set  on  foot  any  procedure  in  common 
with  Tories  and  clergymen,  who,  if  they  ever  aped  civility 
to  Dissenters,  would  never  do  anything  but  laugh  at  them 
in  their  sleeves.  Brother  Kemp  urged  in  his  heavy  bass 
that  Mr.  Lyon  should  lose  no  time  in  sending  an  accoimt 


THE    RADICAL.  227 

of  the  affair  to  the  '"Pati'iot";  and  brother  Hawkins,  in 
his  high  tenor,  observed  that  it  was  an  occasion  on  which 
some  stinging  things  migbt  be  said  with  all  the  extra  effect 
of  an  aproijos. 

The  position  of  receiving  a  many-voiced  lecture  from 
the  members  of  his  church  was  familiar  to  Mr.  Lyon;  but 
now  he  felt  weary,  frustrated,  and  doubtful  of  his  own 
temper.  Felix,  who  stood  by  and  saw  that  this  man  of 
sensitive  fibre  was  suffering  from  talkers  whose  noisy 
superficiality  cost  them  nothing,  got  exasperated.  *'It 
seems  to  me,  sirs,"  he  burst  in,  with  his  predominant 
voice,  "that  Mr.  Lyon  has  hitherto  had  the  hard  part  of 
the  business,  while  you  of  liis  congregation  have  had  the 
easy  one.  Piiiiisli  the  Church  clergy,  if  you  like  —  they 
can  take  care  of  themselves.  But  don't  punish  your  own 
minister.  It's  no  l)usiness  of  mine,  perhaps,  except  so  far 
as  fair-play  is  everybody's  business;  but  it  seems  to  me  the 
time  to  ask  Mr.  Lyon  to  take  a  little  rest,  instead  of 
setting  on  hini  like  so  many  wasps." 

By  this  speech  Felix  raised  a  displeasure  which  fell  on 
the  minister  as  well  as  on  himself;  but  he  gained  his 
immediate  end.  The  talkers  dropped  off  after  a  slight 
show  of  persistence;  and  Mr.  Lyon  quitted  the  field  of  no 
combat  with  a  small  group  of  his  less  imperious  friends, 
to  whom  he  confided  his  intention  of  committing  his  argu- 
ment fully  to  paper,  and  forwarding  it  to  a  discriminating 
editor. 

''Bnt  regarding  j^ersonalities,"  he  added,  "I  have  not 
the  same  clear  showing.  For,  say  that  this  young  man 
was  pusillanimous  —  I  were  but  ill-provided  witli  argu- 
ments if  I  took  my  stand  even  for  a  moment  on  so  poor 
an  irrelevancy  as  that  because  one  curate  is  ill  furnished 
therefore  Episcojiacy  is  false.  If  I  held  up  any  one  to 
just  obloquy,  it  would  be  the  well-designated  Incumbent 
of  thjs  parish,  who,  calling  himself  one  of  the  Church 
militant,  sends  a  young  and  weak-kneed  substitute  to  take 
his  place  in  the  fight." 

Mr.  Philip  Debarry  did  not  neglect  to  make  industrioua 
inquiry  concerning  the  accidents  which  had  detained  the 
Reverend  Theodore  Sherlock  on  his  morning  walk.  That 
well-intentioned  young  divine  was  seen  no  more  in  Treby 
Magna.  But  the  river  was  not  dragged,  for  by  the  even- 
ing coach  the  rector  received  an  explanatory  letter.  The 
Reverend  Theodore's  agitation  had  increased  so  much 
during  his  walk,  that  the  passing  coach  had  been  a  means 


228  FELIX   HOLT, 

of  deliverance  not  to  be  resisted;  and,  literally  at  the 
eleventh  hour,  he  had  hailed  and  mounted  the  cheerful 
Tally-ho!  and  carried  away  his-4)ortion  of  the  debate  in 
his  pocket. 

But  the  rector  Lad  subsequently  the  satisfaction  of 
receiving  Mr.  Sherlock's  painstaking  production  in  print, 
with  a  dedication  to  the  Eeverend  Augustus  Debarry,  a 
motto  from  St.  Chrj^sostom,  and  other  additions,  the  fruit 
of  ripening  leisure.  He  was  "sorry  for  poor  Sherlock, 
Avho  wanted  confidence";  but  he  was  convinced  that  for 
his  own  part  he  had  taken  the  course  which  under  the 
circumstances  was  the  least  compromising  to  the  Church. 
Sir  Maximus,  hov»'ever,  observed  to  his  son  and  brother 
that  he  had  been  right  and  they  had  been  wrong  as  to  the 
danger  of  vague,  enormous  expressions  of  gratitude  to  a 
Dissenting  preacher,  and  on  any  differences  of  opinion  sel- 
dom failed  to  remind  them  of  that  precedent. 


CHAPTER   XXV. 

Your  fellow-man  ?  —  Divide  the  epithet  t 
Say  rather,  you're  the  fellow,  he  the  man. 

Whei?"  Christian  quitted  the  Free  School  with  the  dis- 
covery that  the  young  lady  whose  appearance  had  first 
startled  him  with  an  indefinable  impression  in  the  market- 
place was  the  daughter  of  the  old  Dissenting  preacher 
who  had  shown  so  much  agitated  curiosity  about  his  name, 
he  felt  very  much  like  an  uninitiated  chess-player,  who 
sees  that  the  pieces  are  in  a  peculiar  position  on  the  board, 
and  might  open  the  way  for  him  to  give  checkmate,  if  he 
only  knew  how.  Ever  since  his  interview  with  Jermyn, 
his  mind  had  been  occupied  with  the  charade  it  offered  to 
liis  ingenuity.  What  was  the  real  meaning  of  the  lalvyer's 
interest  in  him,  and  in  his  relations  with  Maurice  Chris- 
tian By  cliff  e?  Here  was  a  secret;  and  secrets  were  often 
a  source  of  profit,  of  that  agreeable  kind  which  involved 
little  labor.  Jermyn  had  hinted  at  profit  which  might  pos- 
sibly come  through  him;  but  Christian  said  inwardly,  with 
well-satisfied  self-esteem,  that  he  was  not  so  pitiable  a  uin- 
comjjoop  as  to  trust  Jermyn.  On  the  contrary,  the  only 
problem  before  him  was  to  find  out  by  what  combination  of 
independent  knowledge  he  could  outwit  Jermyn,  elude  any 


THE    EADICAL.  229 

Durchase  the  attorney  had  on  him  through  his  past  history, 
and  get  a  handsome  bonus,  by  which  a  somewhat  shattered 
man  of  pleasure  might  live  well  without  a  master.  Chris- 
tian, having  early  exhausted  the  more  impulsive  delights 
of  life,  had  become  a  sober  calculator;  and  he  had  made 
up  his  mind  that,  for  a  man  who  had  long  ago  run  through 
liis  own  money,  servitude  in  a  great  family  was  the  best 
kind  of  retirement  after  that  of  a  pensioner;  but  if  a  better 
chance  offered,  a  person  of  talent  must  not  let  it  slip 
through  his  fingers.  He  held  various  ends  of  threads,  but 
there  was  danger  of  pulling  at  them  too  impatiently.  He 
had  not  forgotten  the  surprise  which  had  made  him  drop 
the  punch-ladle,  when  Mr.  Crowder,  talking  in  the  stew- 
ard's room,  had  said  that  a  scamp  named  Henry  Scaddon 
had  been  concerned  in  a  lawsuit  about  the  Transome  estate. 
Again,  Jermyu  was  the  family  lawyer  of  the  Transomes; 
he  knew  of  the  exchange  of  names  between  Scaddon  and 
Bycliffe;  he  clearly  wanted  to  know  as  much  as  he  could 
about  Byclitfe's  history.  The  conclusion  was  not  remote 
that  Bycliffe  had  had  some  claim  on  the  Transome  prop- 
erty, and  that  a  difficulty  had  arisen  from  his  being  con- 
founded with  Henry  Scaddon.  But  hitherto  the  other 
incident  which  had  been  apparently  connected  with  the 
interchange  of  names — Mr.  Lyon's  demand  that  he  should 
write  down  the  name  Maurice  Christian,  accompanied  with 
the  question  whether  that  were  his  whole  name — had  had 
no  visible  link  with  the  inferences  arrived  at  through 
Crowder  and  Jermyn. 

The  discovery  made  this  morning  at  the  Free  School 
that  Esther  was  the  daughter  of  the  Dissenting  preacher 
at  last  sttggested  a  possible  link.  Until  then,  Christian 
had  not  known  wh}^  Esther's  face  had  impressed  him  so 
peculiarly;  but  the  minister's  chief  association  for  him  was 
with  Bycliffe,  and  that  association  served  as  a  flash  to 
show  him  that  Esther's  features  and  expression,  and  still 
more  her  bearing,  now  she  stood  and  walked,  revived 
Bycliffe's  image.  Daughter?  There  were  various  Avays  of 
being  a  daughter.  Suppose  this  were  a  case  of  adoption: 
suppose  Bycliffe  were  known  to  be  dead,  or  thouglit  to  be 
dead.  "Begad,  if  the  old  parson  had  fancied  the  original 
father  was  come  to  life  again,  it  was  enough  to  frighten 
liim  a  little.  Slow  and  steady,"  Christian  said  to  himself; 
"I'll  get  some  talk  with  the  old  man  again.  He's  safe 
enough:  one  can  handle  him  without  cutting  one's  self. 
I'll  tell  him  I  knew  Bycliffe,  and  was  his  fellow-prisoner. 


230  FELIX   HOLT, 

I'll  worm  out  the  truth  about  this  daughter.  Could  pretty- 
Annette  have  married  again,  and  married  this  little  scare- 
crow?    There's  no  knowing  what  a  woman  will  not  do/' 

Christian  could  see  no  distinct  result  for  himself  from 
his  industry:  but  if  there  were  to  be  any  such  result,  it 
must  be  reached  by  following  out  every  clue;  and  to  the 
non-legal  mind  there  are  dim  possibilities  in  law  and 
heirship  which  jDrevent  any  issue  from  seeming  too 
miraculous. 

The  consequence  of  these  meditations  was,  that  Christian 
hung  about  Treby  more  than  usual  in  his  leisure  time, 
and  that  on  the  first  oj^portunity  he  accosted  Mr.  Lyon  in 
the  street  with  suitable  civility,  stating  that  since  tlie 
occasion  which  had  brought  them  together  some  weeks 
before  he  had  often  wished  to  renew  their  conversation, 
and,  with  Mr.  Lyon's  permission,  would  now  ask  to  do 
so.  After  being  assured,  as  he  had  been  by  Jermyn, 
that  this  courier,  who  had  happened  by  some  accident  to 
possess  the  memorable  locket  and  pocket-book,  was  cer- 
tainly not  Annette's  husband,  and  was  ignorant  whether 
Maurice  Christian  Bycliffe  were  living  or  dead,  tlie  minis- 
ter's mind  had  become  easy  again;  his  habitual  lack  of 
interest  in  personal  details  rendering  him  gradually  obliv- 
ious of  Jermyn's  precautionary  statement  that  he  was 
pursuing  inquiries,  and  that  if  anything  of  interest  turned 
up,  Mr.  Lyon  should  be  made  acquainted  with  it.  Hence, 
when  Christian  addressed  him,  the  minister,  taken  by  sur- 
prise and  shaken  by  the  recollections  of  former  anxieties, 
said,  helplessly — 

"If  it  is  business,  sir,  you  would  perhaps  do  better  to 
address  yourself  to  Mr.  Jermyn." 

He  could  not  have  said  anything  that  was  a  more  valu- 
able hint  to  Christian.  He"  inferred  that  the  minister 
had  made  a  confident  of  Jermyn,  and  it  was  needful  to 
be  wary. 

''On  the  contrary,  sir,"  he  answered,  "it  may  be  of  the 
utmost  importance  to  you  that  what  passes  between  ns 
should  not  be  known  to^Mr.  Jermyn." 

Mr.  Lyon  was  perplexed,  and  felt  at  once  that  he  was 
no  more  in  clear  daylight  concerning  Jermyn  than  con- 
cerning Christian.  ^He  dared  not  neglect 'the  possible 
duty  of  hearing  what  this  man  had  to  say,  and  he  invited 
him  to  proceed  to  Malthouse  Yard,  where  they  could  con- 
verse in  private. 

Once  in  Mr.  Lyon's  study.  Christian  opened  the  dialogue 


THE   RADICAL.  231 

by  saying  that  since  he  was  in  this  room  before  it  had 
occurred  to  him  that  the  anxiety  he  had  observed  in  Mr. 
Lyon  might  be  owing  to  some  acquaintance  with  Maurice 
Christian  Bycliffe — a  fellow-prisoner  in  France,  whom  he. 
Christian,  had  assisted  in  getting  freed  from  his  imprison- 
ment, and  who,  in  fact,  had  been  the  owner  of  the  trifles 
which  Mr,  Lyon  had  recently  had  in  his  possession  and  had 
restored.  Christian  hastened  to  say  that  he  knew  nothing 
of  Bycliffe's  history  since  they  had  parted  in  France,  but 
that  he  knew  of  his  marriage  with  Annette  Ledru,  and 
had  been  acquainted  with  Annette  herself.  He  would  be 
very  glad  to  know  what  became  of  By  cliff  e,  if  he  could, 
for  he  liked  him  uncommonly. 

Here  Christian  paused;  but  Mr.  Lyon  only  sat  changing 
color  and  trembling.  This  man's  bearing  and  tone  of 
mind  were  made  repulsive  to  him  by  being  brought  in  con- 
tact with  keenly-felt  memories,  and  he  could  not  readily 
summon  the  courage  to  give  answers  or  ask  questions. 

"May  I  ask  if  you  knew  my  friend  Bycliffe?''  said 
Christian,  trying  a  more  direct  method. 

**No,  sir;  I  never  saw  him." 

'*Ah!  Avell — you  have  seen  a  very  striking  likeness  of 
him.  It's  wonderful — unaccountable;  but  when  I  saw 
Miss  Lyon  at  the  Free  School  the  other  day,  I  could  have 
sworn  she  was  Bycliffe's  daughter." 

**Sir!"  said  Mr.  Lyon,  in  his  deepest  tone,  half  rising, 
and  holding  by  the  arms  of  his  chair,  "these  subjects 
touch  me  with  too  sharp  a  point  for  you  to  be  justified  in 
thrusting  them  on  me  out  of  mere  levity.  Is  there  any 
good  you  seek  or  any  injury  you  fear  in  relation  to  them?" 

"Precisely,  sir.  We  shall  come  to  an  understanding. 
Suppose  I  believed  that  the  young  lady  who  goes  by  the 
name  of  Miss  Lyon  was  the  daughter  of  Bycliffe?" 

Mr.  Lyon  moved  his  lips  silently. 

"And  suppose  I  had  reason  to  suspect  that  there  would 
be  some  great  advantage  for  her  if  the  law  knew  who  was 
her  father?" 

"Sir!"  said  Mr.  Lyon,  shaken  out  of  all  reticence,  "I 
would  not  conceal  it.  She  believes  herself  to  be  my  daugh- 
ter. But  I  will  bear  all  things  rather  than  deprive  her  of 
a  right.  Nevertheless  I  appeal  to  the  pity  of  any  fellow- 
man,  not  to  thrust  himself  between  her  and  me,  but  to  let 
me  disclose  the  truth  to  her  myself." 

All  in  good  time,"  said  Christian.  "We  must  do 
nothing  rash.     Then  Miss  Lyon  is  Annette's  child?" 


232  FELIX   HOLT, 

The  minister  shivered  as  if  the  edge  of  a  knife  had  been 
drawn  across  his  hand.  But  the  tone  of  this  question,  by 
the  very  fact  that  it  intensified  his  antipathy  to  Christian, 
enabled  him  to  collect  himself  for  what  must  be  simply 
the  endurance  of  a  painful  operation.  After  a  moment 
or  two  he  said  more  coolly,  "^It  is  true,  sir.  Her  mother 
became  my  wife.  Proceed  with  any  statement  which  may 
concern  my  duty." 

"  I  have  no  more  to  say  than  this:  if  there's  a  prize  that 
the  law  might  hand  over  to  Bycliffe's  daughter,  I  am  much 
mistaken  if  there  isn't  a  lawyer  who'll  take  precious  good 
care  to  keep  the  law  hoodwinked.  And  that  lawyer  is  Mat 
Jermyn.  Why,  my  good  sir,  if  you've  been  taking  Jermyn 
into  your  confidence,  you've  been  setting  the  fox  to  keep  o& 
the  weasel.  It  strikes  me  that  when  you  were  made  a  little 
anxious  about  those  articles  of  poor  By  cliff  e's,  you  put 
Jermvn  on  making  inquiries  of  me.  Eh?  I  think  I  am 
right?" 

''I  do  not  deny  it." 

"  Ah!  —  it  was  very  well  you  did,  for  by  that  means  I've 
found  that  he's  got  hold  of  some  secrets  about  By  cliff  e 
which  he  means  to  stifle.  Now,  sir,  if  you  desire  any  jus- 
tice for  your  daughter  —  step-daughter,  I  should  say  — 
don't  so  much  as  Avink  to  yourself  before  Jermyn;  and  if 
you've  got  any  papers  or  things  of  that  sort  that  may  come 
in  evidence,  as  these  confounded  rascals  the  lawyers  call  it, 
clutch  them  tight,  for  if  they  get  into  Jermyn's  hands  they 
may  soon  fly  up  the  chimney.     Have  I  said  enough?" 

"I  had  not  purposed  any  further  communication  with 
Mr.  Jermyn,  sir;  indeed,  I  have  nothing  further  to  com- 
municate. Except  that  one  fact  concerning  my  daugh- 
ter's birth,  which  I  have  erred  in  concealing  from  her,  I 
neither  seek  disclosures  nor  do  I  tremble  before  them." 

"Then  I  have  your  word  that  you  will  be  silent  about 
this  conversation  between  us?  It  is  for  your  daughter's 
interest,  mind." 

"Sir,  I  shall  be  silent,"  said  Mr.  Lyon,  with  cold 
gravity.  "Unless,"  he  added,  with  an  acumen  as  to  possi- 
bilities rather  disturbing  to  Christian's  confident  contempt 
for  the  old  man — "  unless  I  were  called  upon  by  some 
tribunal  to  declare  the  whole  truth  in  this  relation  ;  in 
which  case  I  should  submit  myself  to  that  authority  of 
investigation  which  is  a  requisite  of  social  order." 

Christian  departed,  feeling  satisfied  that  he  had  got  the 
utmost  to  be  obtained  at  present  out  of  the  Dissenting 


THE   RADICAL.  233 

m-eacher,  whom  he  had  not  dared  to  question  more  closely. 
He  must  look  out  for  chance  lights,  and  perhaps,  too,  he 
might  catch-  a  stray  hint  by  stirring  the  sediment  of  Mr. 
Crowder's  memory.  But  he  must  not  venture  on  inquiries 
ihat  might  be  noticed.     He  was  in  awe  of  Jermyn. 

When  Mr,  Lyon  was  alone  he  paced  up  and  down  among 
his  books,  and  thought  aloud,  in  order  to  relieve  himself 
after  the  constraint  of  this  interview.  "  I  will  not  wait  for 
the  urgency  of  necessity,"  he  said  more  than  once.  ^'1 
will  tell  the  child  without  compulsion.  And  then  I  shall 
fear  nothing.  And  an  unwonted  spirit  of  tenderness  has 
filled  her  of  late.     She  will  forgive  me." 


CHAPTER  XXVI. 


Consideration  like  an  angel  came 

And  wliipped  tlie  offending-  Adam  out  of  her; 

Lea^ang  ner  body  as  a  paradise 

To  envelop  and  contain  celestial  spirits. 

Shakespeare  :  Henry  V. 

The  next  morning,  after  much  prayer  for  the  needful 
strength  and  wisdom,  Mr.  Lyon  came  down  stairs  with  the 
resolution  that  another  day  should  not  pass  without  the 
fulfillment  of  the  task  he  had  laid  on  himself;  but  what 
hour  he  should  choose  for  his  solemn  disclosure  to  Esther 
must  depend  on  their  mutual  occupations.  Perhaps  he 
must  defer  it  till  they  sat  up  alone  together,  after  Lyddy 
was  gone  to  bed.     But  at  breakfast  Esther  said — 

''To-day  is  a  holiday,  father.  My  pupils  are  all  going 
to  Duffield  to  see  the  wild  beasts.  What  have  you  got  to 
do  to-day?  Come,  you  are  eating  no  breakfast.  Oh, 
Lyddy,  Lyddy,  the  eggs  are  hard  again.  I  wish  you  would 
not  read  Alleyne^s  'Alarm'  before  breakfast;  it  makes  you 
cry  and  forget  the  eggs." 

"  They  are  hard,  and  that's  the  truth;  but  there's  hearts 
as  are  harder.  Miss  Esther,"  said  Lyddy. 

''I  think  not,"  said  Esther.  ''  This  is  leathery  enough 
for  the  heart  of  the  most  obdurate  Jew.  Pray  give  it 
little  Zachary  for  a  football." 

"  Dear,  dear,  don't  you  be  so  light,  miss.  We  may  all 
be  dead  before  night." 

"  You  speak  out  of  season,  my  good  Lyddy,"  said  Mr. 
Lyon,  wearily;  "  depart  into  the  kitchen." 


234  FELIX   HOLT, 

**What  have  you  got  to  do  to-day,  father?"  persisted 
Esther.     *'I  have  a  holiday." 

Mr.  Lyon  felt  as  if  this  were  a  fresh  summons  not  to 
delay.  "  I  have  something  of  great  moment  to  do,  my 
dear;  and  since  you  are  not  otherwise  demanded,  I  will 
ask  you  to  come  and  sit  with  me  up-stairs." 

Esther  wondered  what  there  could  be  on  her  father's 
mind  more  pressing  than  his  morning  studies. 

She  soon  knew.  Motionless,  but  mentally  stirred  as  she 
had  never  been  before,  Esther  listened  to  her  mother's 
story,  and  to  the  outpouring  of  her  step-father's  long- 
pent-up  experience.  The  rays  of  the  morning  sun  which 
fell  athwart  the  books,  the  sense  of  the  beginning  day, 
had  deepened  the  solemnity  more  than  night  would  have 
done.  All  knowledge  which  alters  our  lives  penetrates  us 
more  when  it  comes  in  the  early  morning:  the  day  that 
has  to  be  traveled  with  something  new  and  perhaps  forever 
sad  in  its  light,  is  an  image  of  the  life  that  spreads  beyond. 
But  at  night  the  time  of  rest  is  near. 

Mr.  Lyon  regarded  his  narrative  as  a  confession — as  a 
revelation  to  this  beloved  child  of  his  own  miserable  weak- 
ness and  error.  But  to  her  it  seemed  a  revelation  of 
another  sort:  her  mind  seemed  suddenly  enlarged  by  a 
vision  of  passion  and  struggle,  of  delight  and  renuncia- 
tion, in  the  lot  of  beings  who  had  hitherto  been  a  dull 
enigma  to  her.  And  in  the  act  of  unfolding  to  her  that 
he  was  not  her  real  father,  but  had  only  striven  to  cherish 
her  as  a  father,  had  only  longed  to  be  loved  as  a  father, 
the  odd,  wayworn,  unworldly  man  became  the  object  of  a 
new  sympathy  in  which  Esther  felt  herself  exalted.  Per- 
haps this  knowledge  would  have  been  less  poAverf  ul  within 
her,  but  for  the  mental  preparation  that  liad  come  during 
the  last  two  months  from  her  acquaintance  with  Felix 
Holt,  which  had  taught  her  to  doubt  the  infallibility  of 
her  own  standard,  and  raised  a  presentiment  of  moral 
depths  that  were  hidden  from  her. 

Esther  had  taken  her  place  opposite  to  her  father,  and 
had  not  moved  even  her  clasped  hands  v/hile  he  was  speak- 
ing. But  after  the  long  outpouring  in  which  he  seemed 
to  lose  the  sense  of  everything  but  the  memories  he  was 
giving  utterance  to,  he  paused  a  little  while,  and  then 
said  timidly — 

"This  is  a  late  retrieval  of  a  long  error,  Esther.  I 
make  not  excuses  for  myself,  for  we  ought  to  strive  thai 


THE   EADIGAL.  235 

^ur    affections    be  rooted    in    the    truth.      Nevertheless 
you " 

Esther  had  risen,  and  had  glided  on  to  the  wooden 
stool  on  a  level  with  her  father^s  chair,  where  he  was 
accustomed  to  lay  books.  She  wanted  to  speak,  but  the 
floodgates  could  not  be  opened  for  words  alone.  She 
threw  her  arms  round  the  old  man's  neck  and  sobbed  out 
with  a  passionate  cry,  "Father,  father!  forgive  me  if  I 
have  not  loved  you  enough.     I  will  —  I  will!" 

The  old  man's  little  delicate  frame  was  shaken  by  a 
surprise  and  joy  that  were  almost  painful  in  their  in- 
tensity. He  had  been  going  to  ask  forgiveness  of  her 
who  asked  it  for  herself.  In  that  moment  of  supreme 
complex  emotion  one  ray  of  the  minister's  joy  was  the 
thought,  '^Surely  the  work  of  grace  is  begun  in  her  — 
surely  here  is  a  heart  that  the  Lord  hath  touched." 

They  sat  so,  enclasj)ed  in  silence,  while  Esther  relieved 
lier  full  heart.  When  she  raised  her  head,  she  sat  quite  still 
for  a  minute  or  two  looking  fixedly  before  her,  and  keeping 
one  little  hand  in  the  minister's.  Presently  she  looked  at 
him  and  said  — 

'^'Then  you  lived  like  a  working  man,  father;  you  were 
very,  very  poor.  Yet  my  mother  had  been  used  to 
luxury.     She  was  well  born  —  she  was  a  lady." 

"It  is  true,  my  dear;  it  was  a  poor  life  that  I  could 
give  her." 

Mr.  Lyon  answered  in  utter  dimness  as  to  the  course 
Esther's  mind  was  taking.  He  had  anticij^ated  before  his 
disclosure,  from  his  long-standing  discernment  of  tenden- 
cies in  her  which  were  often  the  cause  of  silent  grief  to 
him,  that  the  discovery  likely  to  have  the  keenest  interest 
for  her  would  be  that  her  jDarents  had  a  higher  rank  than 
that  of  the  poor  Dissenting  preacher;  but  she  had  shown 
that  other  and  better  sensibilities  Avere  predominant.  He 
rebuked  liimself  now  for  a  hasty  and  shallow  judgment 
concerning  the  child's  inner  life,  and  waited  for  new 
clearness. 

"But  that  must  be  the  best  life,  father,"  said  Esther, 
suddenly  rising,  with  a  flush  across  her  j)aleness,  and 
standing  with  her  liead  thrown  a  little  backward,  as  if 
some  illumination  had  given  her  a  new  decision.  "That 
must  be  the  best  life." 

"What  life,  my  dear  child?" 

"  Why,  that  where  one  bears  and  does  everything  because 


236  FELIX   HOLT, 

of  some  great  and  strong  feeling — so  that  this  and  that  in 
one's  circumstances  don't  signify,'" 

"Yea,  verily;  but  the  feeling  that  should  be  thus 
supreme  is  devotedness  to  the  Divine  Will." 

Esther  did  not  speak;  her  father's  words  did  not  fit  on 
to  the  impressions  wrought  in  her  by  what  he  had  told 
her.     She  sat  down  again,  and  said,  more  quietly  — 

"Mamma  did  not  speak  much  of  my  —  first  fatlier?" 

"Not  much,  dear.  She  said  he  was  beautiful  to  the 
eye,  and  good  and  generous;  and  that  his  family  was  of 
those  who  have  been  long  privileged  among  their  fellows. 
But  now  I  will  deliver  to  you  the  letters,  which,  together 
Vvith  the  ring  and  locket,  are  the  only  visible  memorials 
she  retained  of  him." 

Mr,  Lyon  reached  and  delivered  to  Esther  the  box 
containing  the  relics.  "Take  them,  and  examine  them 
in  privacy,  my  dear.  And  that  I  may  no  more  err  by 
concealment,  I  will  tell  you  some  late  occurrences  that 
bear  on  these  memorials,  though  to  my  present  apprehen- 
sion doubtfully  and  confusedly." 

He  then  narrated  to  Esther  all  that  had  passed  between 
himself  and  Christian.  The  possibility  —  to  which  Mr. 
Lyon's  alarms  had  pointed — that  her  real  father  might 
still  be  living,  was  a  new  shock.  She  could  not  speak 
about  it  to  her  present  father,  but  it  was  registered  in 
silence  as  a  painful  addition  to  the  uncertainties  which  she 
suddenly  saw  hanging  over  her  life. 

.  "I  have  little  confidence  in  this  man's  allegations,"  Mr. 
Lyon  ended.  "I  confess  his  presence  and  speech  are  to 
me  as  the  jarring  of  metal.  He  bears  the  stamp  of  one 
who  has  never  conceived  aught  of  more  sanctity  than  the 
lust  of  the  eye  and  the  pride  of  life.  lie  hints  at  some 
possible  inheritance  for  you,  and  denounces  mysteriously 
the  devices  of  Mr.  Jermyn.  All  this  may  or  may  not  have 
a  true  foundation.  But  it  is  not  my  part  to  move  in  this 
matter  save  on  a  clearer  showing." 

'_' Certainly  not,  father,"  said  Esther,  eagerly.  A  little 
while  ago,  these  problematic  prospects  inight  liave  set  her 
dreaming  pleasantly;  but  now,  for  some  reasons  that  she 
could  not  have  put  distinctly  into  words,  they  affected  her 
with  dread. 


THE  KADICAL.  237 


CHAPTER  XXYII. 

To  hear  with  eyes  is  part  of  love's  rare  wit. 

—Shakespeare:  Sennets. 

Custom  calls  me  to't; 
■WTiat  custom  wills,  in  all  things  should  we  do't. 
The  dust,  on  antique  time  would  lie  unswept. 
And  mountainous  error  be  too  highly  heaped 
For  truth  to  over-peer.— Coriotani*s. 

liT  the  afternoon  Mr.  Lyon  went  out  to  see  the  sick 
amongst  his  flock,  and  Esther,  who  had  been  passing  the 
morning  in  dwelling  on  the  memories  and  the  few  remain- 
ing relics  of  her  parents,  was  left  alone  in  the  parlor 
amidst  the  lingering  odors  of  the  early  dinner,  not  easily 
got  rid  of  in  that  small  honse.  Rich  people,  who  know 
nothing  of  these  vulgar  details,  can  hardly  imagine  their 
significance  in  the  historv  of  multitudes  of  human  lives  in 
Avhich  the  sensibilities  are  never  adjusted  to  the  external 
conditions.  Esther  always  felt  so  much  discomfort  from 
those  odors  that  she  usually  seized  any  possibility  of 
escaping  from  them,  and  to-day  they  oppressed  her  the 
more  because  she  was  weary  with  long-continued  agitation. 
Why  did  she  not  put  on  her  bonnet  as  usual  and  get  out 
into  the  open  air?  It  was  one  of  those  pleasant  November 
afternoons — pleasant  in  the  wide  country  —  when  the  sun- 
shine is  on  the  clinging  brown  leaves  of  the  young  oaks, 
and  the  last  yellow  leaves  of  the  elms  flutter  down  in  the 
fresh  but  not  eager  breeze.  But  Esther  sat  still  on  the 
sofa — pale  and  with  reddened  eyelids,  her  curls  all  pushed 
back  carelessly,  and  her  elbow  resting  on  the  ridgy  black 
horsehair,  which  usually  almost  set  her  teeth  on  edge  if  she 
pressed  it  even  through  her  sleeve  —  while  her  eyes  rested 
iDlankly  on  the  dull  street.  Lyddy  had  said,  "  Miss,  you 
look  sadly;  if  you  can't  take  a  walk,  go  and  lie  down.^' 
She  had  never  seen  the  curls  in  such  disorder,  and  she 
reflected  that  there  had  been  a  death  from  typhus  recently. 
But  the  obstinate  Miss  only  shook  her  head. 

Esther  was  waiting  for  the  sake  of  —  not  a  probability, 
but  —  a  mere  possibility,  which  made  the  brothy  odors 
endurable.  Apparently,  in  less  than  half  an  hour,  the  pos- 
sibility came  to  pass,  for  she  changed  her  attitude,  almost 
started  from  her  seat,  sat  down  again,  and  listened  eagerly. 
If  Lyddy  should  send  him  away,  could  she  herself  rush  out 
and  call  him  back?     Why  not?    Such  things  were  permis- 


238  FELIX    HOLT, 

sible  where  it  was  understood,  from  the  necessity  of  the 
case,  that  there  was  only  frieudshijo.  But  Lyddy  opened 
the  door  and  said,  "Here's  Mr,  Holt,  Miss,  wants  to  know 
if  vou'll  give  him  leave  to  come  in.  I  told  him  you  was 
sadly. '^ 

"Oh,  yes,  Lyddy,  beg  him  to  come  in." 

"  I  should  not  have  persevered,"  said  Felix,  as  they  shook 
hands,  "only  I  know  L3^ddy's  dismal  way.  But  you  do 
look  ill,"  he  went  on,  as  he  seated  himself  at  the  other  end 
of  the  sofa,  "  Or  rather — for  that's  a  false  way  of  putting 
it — you  look  as  if  you  had  been  very  much  distressed.  Do 
you  mind  about  my  taking  notice  of  it?" 

He  spoke  very  kindly,  and  looked  at  her  more  persist- 
ently than  he  had  ever  done  before,  when  her  hair  was 
perfect. 

"  You  are  quite  right.  I  am  not  at  all  ill.  But  I  have 
been  very  much  agitated  this  morning.  My  father  has 
been  telling  me  things  I  never  heard  before  about  my 
mother,  and  giving  me  things  that  belonged  to  her.  She 
died  when  I  was  a  very  little  creature." 

"  Then  it  is  no  new  puin  or  trouble  for  you  and  Mr>. 
Lyon?     I  could  not  help  being  anxious  to  know  that." 

Esther  passed  her  hand  over  her  brow  before  she 
answered.  "I  hardly  know  whether  it  is  pain,  or  some- 
thing better  than  pleasure.  It  has  made  me  see  things  I 
was  blind  to  before — depths  in  my  father's  nature." 

As  she  said  this,  she  looked  at  Felix,  and  their  eyes  met 
very  gravely. 

"It  is  such  a  beautiful  day,"  he  said,  "  it  would  do  you 
good. to  go  into  the  air.  Let  me  take  you  along  the  river 
toward  Little  Treby,  will  you?" 

"I  will  put  my  bonnet  on," said  Esther,  unhesitatingly, 
though  they  had  never  walked  out  together  before. 

It  is  true  that  to  get  into  the  fields  they  had  to  pass 
through  the  street;  and  when  Esther  saw  some  acquaint- 
ances, she  reflected  that  her  walking  alone  with  Felix 
might  be  a  subject  of  remark — all  the  more  because  of  his 
cap,  patched  boots,  no  cravat,  and  thick  stick.  Esther  was 
a  little  amazed  herself  at  what  she  had  come  to.  So  our 
lives  glide  on:  the  river  ends  we  don't  know  where,  and  the 
sea  begins,  and  there  is  no  more  jumping  ashore. 

When  they  were  in  the  streets  Esther  hardly  spoke. 
Felix  talked  with  his  usual  readiness,  as  easily  as  if  he  Avere 
not  doing  it  solely  to  divert  her  thoughts,  first  about  Job 
Tudge's  delicate  chest,  and  the  probability  that  the  little 


THE   KADICAL.  239 

white-faced  monkey  would  not  live  long;  and  then  about  a 
inisemble  beginning  of  a  night-school,  which  was  all  he 
fould  get  together  at  Sproxton;  and  the  dismalness  of  that 
hamlet,  whicli  was  a  sort  of  lip  to  the  coalpit  on  one  side  and 
the  "public"  on  tlie  other — and  yet  a  paradise  compared 
with  the  wynds  of  Glasgow,  where  there  was  little  more 
than  a  chink  of  daylight  to  show  the  hatred  in  women's 
faces. 

But  soon  tliey  got  into  the  fields,  where  there  was  a  right 
of  way  toward  Little  Treby,  now  following  the  course  of 
the  river,  now  crossing  toward  a  lane,  and  now  turning  into 
a  cart-track  through  a  plantation. 

•'  Here  avo  are!  "  said  Felix,  when  they  had  crossed  the 
wooden  bridge,  and  were  treadins'  on  the  slanting'  shadows 
made  by  the  elm-trunks.  "I  think  this  is  delicious.  1 
]iever  feel  less  unhappy  than  in  these  late  autumn  after- 
noons when  they  are  sunny." 

''  Less  unhappy!  There  now!"  said  Esther,  smiling  at 
him  with  some  of  her  habitual  sauciness,  *'  I  have  caught 
you  in  self-contradiction.  I  have  heard  you  quite  furious 
against  j)uling,  melancholy  people.  If  I  had  said  what  you 
have  just  said,  you  would  have  given  me  a  long  lecture,  and 
told  me  to  go  home  and  interest  myself  in  the  reason  of 
the  rule  of  three." 

"  Very  likely,"  said  Felix,  beating  the  weeds,  according 
to  the  foible  of  our  common  humanitv  when  it  has  a  stick 
in  its  hand.  "  But  I  don't  think  myself  a  fine  fellow 
because  I'm  melancholy.  I  don't  measure  my  force  by  the 
negations  in  me,  and  think  my  soul  must  be  a  mighty  one 
because  it  is  more  given  to  idle  suffering  than  to  beneficent 
activity.  That's  what  your  favorite  gentlemen  do,  of  the 
Byronic-bilious  style," 

"I  don't  admit  tluxt  those  are  my  favorite  gentlemen." 

''I've  heard  you  defend  them  —  gentlemen  like  your 
Renes,  who  have  no  particular  talent  for  the  finite,  but  a 
general  sense  that  the  infinite  is  the  right  thing  for  them. 
They  might  as  well  boast  of  nausea  as  a  proof  of  a  strong 
inside." 

"  Stop,  stop!  You  run  on  in  that  way  to  get  out  of 
my  reach.  I  convicted  you  of  confessing  that  you  are 
melancholy." 

"  Yes,"  said  Felix,  thrusting  his  left  hand  into  his  pocket, 
with  a  shrug;  "as  I  could  confess  to  a  great  many  other 
things  I'm  not  proud  of.  The  fact  is,  there  are  not  many 
easy    lots    to    be   drawn  in   the   world  at   present;    and 


240  FELIX    HOLT, 

such  as  they  are  I  am  not  envious  of  them.  I  don't  say 
life  is  not  "worth  having:  it  is  wortli  having  to  a  man 
man  who  has  some  sparks  of  sense  and  feeling  and  bravery 
in  him.  And  the  finest  fellow  of  all  would  be  the  one 
who  could  be  glad  to  have  lived  because  the  world  was 
chiefly  miserable,  and  his  life  had  come  to  help  some  one 
who  needed  it.  He  would  be  the  man  who  had  the  most 
powers  and  the  fewest  selfish  wants.  But  I'm  not  up  to 
the  level  of  what  I  see  to  be  best.  I'm  often  a  hungry 
discontented  fellow." 

"Why  have  you  made  your  life  so  hard  then?"  said 
Esther,  rather  friglitened  as  she  asked  the  question.  "  It 
seems  to  me  you  have  tried  to  find  just  the  most  difficult 
task." 

"  Not  at  all,"  said  Felix,  with  curt  decision.  "  My 
course  was  a  very  simple  one.  It  was  pointed  out  to  me 
by  conditions  that  I  saw  as  clearly  as  I  see  the  bars  of  this 
stile.  It's  a  difficult  stile  too,"  added  Felix,  striding  over. 
"  Shall  I  help  you,  or  will  you  be  left  to  yourself?" 

"I  can  do  without  help,  thank  you." 

**  It  was  all  simple  enough,"  continued  Felix,  as  they 
walked  on.  "  If  I  meant  to  put  a  stop  to  the  sale  of 
those  drugs,  I  must  keep  my  mother,  and  of  course  at  her 
age  she  would  not  leave  the  place  she  had  been  used  to. 
And  I  had  made  up  my  mind  against  what  they  call  gen- 
teel business." 

"But  suppose  every  one  did  as  you  do?  Please  to 
forgive  me  for  saying  so;  but  I  cannot  see  why  you  could 
not  have  lived  as  honorably  with  some  employment  that 
presupposes  edvication  and  refinement." 

"  Because  you  can't  see  my  history  or  my  nature,"  said 
Felix,  bluntly.  "  I  haA^e  to  determine  for  myself,  and 
not  for  other  men.  I  don't  blame  them,  or  think  I  am 
better  than  they;  their  circumstances  are  different.  I 
would  never  choose  to  withdraw  myself  from  the  labor 
and  common  burden  of  the  world;  but  I  do  choose  to 
withdraw  myself  from  the  push  and  the  scramble  for 
money  and  position.  Any  man  is  at  liberty  to  call  me  a 
fool,  and  say  that  mankind  are  benefited  by  the  push  and 
the  scramble  in  the  long-run.  But  I  care  for  the  people 
who  live  now  and  will  not  be  living  when  the  long-run 
comes.    As  it  is,  I  prefer  going  shares  with  the  unlucky." 

Esther  did  not  speak,  and  there  was  silence  between 
them  for  a  minute  or  two,  till  they  passed  through  a  gate 
into  a  plantation  where  there  was  no  larere  timber,  but 


THE    EADICAL.  241 

only  thin-stemmed  trees  and  underwood,  so  that  the  sun- 
light fell  on  the  mossy  spaces  which  lay  open  here  and 
there. 

"  See  how  beautiful  those  stooping  birch-stems  are  witli 
the  light  on  them!"  said  Felix.  "' Here  is  an  old  felled 
trunk  they  have  not  thought  worth  carrying  away.  Shall 
we  sit  down  a  little  while?'' 

"Yes;  the  mossy  ground  with  the  dry  leaves  sprinkled 
over  it  is  delightful  to  one's  feet."  Esther  sat  down  and 
took  off  her  bonnet,  that  the  light  breeze  might  fall  on 
lier  head.  Felix,  too,  threw  down  his  cap  and  stick,  lying 
on  the  ground  with  his  back  against  the  felled  trunk. 

"1  wish  I  felt  more  as  you  do,"  she  said,  looking  at  the 
point  of  her  foot,  which  was  playing  with  a  tuft  of  moss. 
''I  can't  help  caring  very  much  what  happens  to  me. 
And  you  seem  to  care  so  little  about  yourself." 

''You  are  thoroughly  mistaken,"  said  Felix.  "It  is 
just  because  I'm  a  very  ambitious  fellow,  with  very  hungry 
passions,  wanting  a  great  deal  to  satisfy  me,  that  I  have 
chosen  to  give  up  what  people  call  worldly  good.  At  least 
that  has  been  one  determining  reason.  It  all  depends  on 
what  a  man  gets  into  his  consciousness — what  life  thrusts 
into  his  mind,  so  that  it  becomes  present  to  him  as 
remorse  is  present  to  the  guilty,  or  a  mechanical  problem 
to  an  inventive  genius.  There  are  two  things  I've  got 
present  in  that  way:  one  of  them  is  the  picture  of  what  I 
should  hate  to  be.  I'm  determined  never  to  go  about 
making  my  face  simpering  or  solemn,  and  telling  profes- 
sional lies  for  profit;  or  to  get  tangled  in  affairs  where  I 
must  wink  at  dishonesty  and  pocket  the  proceeds,  and 
justify  that  knavery  as  part  of  a  system  that  I  can't  alter. 
If  I  once  went  into  that  sort  of  struggle  for  success  I 
should  want  to  win — I  should  defend  the  wrong  that  I  had 
once  identified  myself  Avith.  I  should  become  everything 
that  I  see  now  beforehand  to  be  detestable.  And  wliat's 
more,  I  should  do  this,  as  men  are  doing  it  every  da}^  for 
a  ridiculously  small  prize — perhaps  for  none  at  all — per- 
haps for  the  sake  of  two  parlors,  a  rank  eligible  for 
the  churchwardenship,  a  discontented  wife,  and  several 
unhopeful  children.'^ 

Esther  felt  a  terrible  pressure  on  her  heart — the  certainty 
of  her  remoteness  from  Felix — the  sense  that  she  was 
utterly  trivial  to  him. 

"The  other  thing  that's  got  into  my  mind  like  a 
splinter,"  said  Felix,  after  a  pause,  "is  the  Jife  of  the 

16 


242  FELIX  HOLT, 

miserable — the  spawning  life  of  vice  and  hunger.  I'll 
never  be  one  of  the  sleek  dogs.  The  old  Catholics  are 
right,  with  their  higher  rule  and  their  lower.  Some  are 
called  to  subject  themselves  to  a  harder  discipline,  and 
renounce  things  voluntarily  which  are  lawful  for  others. 
It  is  the  old  word — '  necessity  is  laid  upon  me.'" 

"It  seems  to  me  you  are  stricter  than  my  father  is." 

*'  No  ;  I  quarrel  with  no  delight  that  is  not  base  or  cruel, 
but  one  must  sometimes  accommodate  one's  self  to  a  small 
share.  That  is  the  lot  of  the  majority.  I  would  wish  the 
minority  joy,  only  they  don't  want  my  wishes." 

Again  tliere  was  silence.  Esther's  cheeks  were  hot  in 
spite  of  the  breeze  that  sent  her  hair  floating  backward. 
She  felt  an  inward  strain,  a  demand  on  her  to  see  things 
in  a  light  that  was  not  easy  or  soothing.  When  Felix  had 
asked  her  to  walk  he  had  seemed  so  kind,  so  alive  to  what 
might  be  her  feelings,  that  she  had  thought  herself  nearer 
to  him  than  she  had  ever  been  before  ;  but  since  they  had 
come  out  he  had  appeared  to  forget  all  that.  And  yet  she 
was  conscious  that  this  impatience  of  hers  was  very  petty. 
Battling  in  this  way  with  her  own  little  imjiulses,  and 
looking  at  the  birch-stems  opposite  till  her  gaze  was  too 
wide  for  her  to  see  anything  disctinctly,  she  was  unaware 
how  long  they  had  remained  without  speaking.  She  did 
not  know  that  Felix  had  changed  his  attitude  a  little,  and 
was  resting  his  elbow  on  the  tree-trunk,  while  he  supported 
his  head,  which  was  turned  toward  her.  Suddenly  he 
said,  in  a  lower  tone  than  was  habitual  to  him — 

**You  are  very  beautiful." 

She  started  and  looked  round  at  him,  to  see  whether 
his  face  would  give  some  help  to  the  interpretation  of  this 
novel  speech.  He  was  looking  up  at  her  quite  calmly, 
very  much  as  a  reverential  Protestant  might  look  at  a 
picture  of  the  virgin,  with  a  devoutness  suggested  by  the 
type  rather  than  by  the  image.  Esther's  vanity  was  not 
in  the  least  gratified  :  she  felt  that,  somehow  or  other, 
Felix  was  going  to  reproach  her. 

'*I  wonder,"  he  went  on,  still  looking  at  her,  ''whether 
the  subtle  measuring  of  forces  will  ever  come  to  measuring 
the  force  there  would  be  in  one  beautiful  woman  whose 
mind  was  as  noble  as  her  face  was  beautiful — who  made  a 
man's  passion  for  her  rush  in  one  current  with  all  the 
great  aims  of  his  life." 

Esther's  eyes  got  hot  and  smarting.  It  was  no  use 
trying  to  be  dignified.     She  had  turned  away  her  head. 


THE    RADICAL.  243 

and  now  said,  rather  bitterly,  '"It  is  difficult  for  a  woman 
ever  to  try  to  be  anything  good  when  she  is  not  believed 
in — wlien  it  is  always  supposed  that  she  must  be  con- 
temptible." 

"  No,  dear  Esther  " — it  was  the  first  time  Felix  had  been 
prompted  to  call  her  by  her  Christian  name,  and  as  he  did 
so  he  laid  his  large  hand  on  her  two  little  hands,  which 
were  clasped  on  her  knees.  ''You  don't  believe  that  I 
tliink  you  contemptible.    -When  I  first  saw  you " 

"I  know,  I  know. "said  Esther,  interrupting  him  impet- 
uously, but  still  looking  away.  "  You  mean  you  did  think 
me  contemptible  then.  But  it  was  very  narrow  of  you  to 
judge  me  in  that  way.  when  my  life  had  been  so  different 
from  yours.  I  have  great  faults,  I  know  I  am  selfish, 
and  think  too  mucli  of  my  own  small  tastes  and  too  little 
of  what  effects  others.  But  I  am  not  stupid.  I  am  not 
unfeeling.     1  can  see  what  is  better." 

"But  I  have  not  done  3^ou  injustice  since  I  knew  more 
of  you,"  said  Felix,  gently. 

"Yes,  you  have,"  said  Esther,  turning  and  smiling 
at  him  through  her  tears.  "  You  talk  to  me  like  an  angry 
pedagogue.  Were  you  always  v/ise?  Remember  the  time 
when  you  were  foolish  or  naughty." 

"  That  is  not  far  off,"  said  Felix,  curtly,  taking  away 
his  hand,  and  clasping  it  with  the  other  at  the  back  of  his 
head.  The  talk,  which  seemed  to  be  introducing  a  mutual 
understanding,  such  as  had  not  existed  before,  seemed  to 
have  undergone  some  check, 

"Sluill  we  get  up  and  walk  back  now?"  said  Esther, 
after  a  few  moments. 

"No,"  said  Felix,  entreatingly.  "Don't  move  yet. 
I  dare  say  we  shall  never  walk  together  or  sit  here  again." 

"AYhy  not?*' 

"Because  I  am  a  man  who  am  warned  by  visions. 
Those  old  stories  of  visions  and  dreams  guiding  men  have 
their  truth:  we  are  saved  by  making  the  future  present  to 
ourselves," 

"  I  wish  I  could  get  visions,  then,"  said  Esther,  smiling 
at  him,  with  an  effort  of  playfulness,  in  resistance  to 
something  vaguely  mournful  within  her. 

"That  is  what  I  want,"  said  Felix,  looking  at  her  very 
earnestly.  "  Don't  turn  your  head.  Do  look  at  me,  and 
then  I  shall  know  if  I  may  go  on  speaking,  I  do  believe 
in  you;  but  I  want  you  to  have  such  a  vision  of  the 
future  that   you  may  never  lose  your  best  self.      Some 


244  FELIX   HOLT, 

charm  or  other  may  be  flung  about  you  —  some  of  your 
atta-of-rose  fascinations  —  and  notliiug  but  a  good  strong 
terrible  vision  will  save  you.  And  if  it  did  save  you,  you 
might  be  that  woman  I  was  thinking  of  a  little  while  ago 
when  I  looked  at  your  face:  the  woman  whose  beauty 
makes  a  great  task  easier  to  men  instead  of  turning  them 
away  from  it.  I  am  not  likely  to  see  such  fine  issues;  but 
they  may  come  where  a  woman's  spirit  is  finely  touched. 
I  should  like  to  be  sure  they  would  come  to  you." 

"Why  are  you  not  likely  to  know  what  becomes  of  me?" 
said  Esther,  turning  away  her  eyes  in  spite  of  his  com- 
mand. "Why  should  you  not  always  be  my  father's 
friend  and  mine?" 

"Oh,  I  shall  go  away  as  soon  as  I  can  to  some  large 
town,"  said  Felix,  in  his  more  usual  tone — "some  ugly, 
wicked,  miserable  place.  I  want  to  be  a  demagogue  of  a 
new  sort;  an  honest  one,  if  possible,  who  will  tell  the  people 
they  are  blind  and  foolish,  and  neither  flatter  them  nor 
fatten  on  them.  I  have  my  heritage  —  an  order  I  belong 
to.  I  have  the  blood  of  a  line  of  handicraftsmen  in  my 
veins,  and  I  want  to  stand  up  for  the  lot  of  the  handi- 
craftsman as  a  good  lot,  in  which  a  man  may  be  better 
trained  to  all  the  best  functions  of  his  nature  than  if  he 
belonged  to  the  grimacing  set  who  have  visiting-cards, 
and  are  proud  to  be  thought  richer  than  their  neighbors." 

"Would  nothing  ever  make  it  seem  right  to  you  to 
change  your  mind?"  said  Esther  (she  had  rapidly  woven 
some  possibilities  out  of  the  new  uncertainties  in  her  own 
lot,  though  she  would  not  for  the  world  have  had  Felix 
know  of  her  weaving).  "Suppose,  by  some  means  or 
other,  a  fortune  might  come  to  you  honorably  —  by  mar- 
riage, or  in  any  other  unexpected  way — would  you  see  no 
change  in  your  course?" 

"No,"  said  Felix,  peremptorily;  "I  will  never  be  rich. 
I  don't  count  that  as  any  peculiar  virtue.  Some  men  do 
well  to  accept  riches,  but  that  is  not  my  inward  vocation: 
I  have  no  fellow-feeling  with  the  rich  as  a  class;  the 
habits  of  their  lives  are  odious  to  me.  Thousands  of  men 
have  wedded  poverty  because  they  expect  to  go  to  heaven 
for  it;  I  don't  expect  to  go  to  heaven  for  it,  but  I  wed  it 
because  it  enables  me  to  do  what  I  most  want  to  do  on 
earth.  Whatever  the  hopes  for  the  world  may  be  — 
whether  great  or  small  —  I  am  a  man  of  this  generation; 
I  will  try  to  make  life  less  bitter  for  a  few  within  my 
reach.      It    is  held  reasonable   enough   to   toil    for  the 


THE    RADICAL.  245 

fortunes  of  a  family,  though  it  may  turn  to  imbecility  in 
the  third  generation.  I  choose  a  family  with  more  chances 
in  it." 

Esther  looked  before  her  dreamily  till  she  said,  "That 
seems  a  hard  lot;  yet  it  is  a  great  one."  She  rose  to  walk 
back. 

"Then  you  don't  think  I'm  a  fool/'  said  Felix,,  loudly, 
starting  to  his  feet,  and  then  stooping  to  gather  up  his 
cap  and  stick. 

"  Of  course  you  suspected  me  of  that  stupidity." 

"Well — women,  unless  they  are  Saint  Theresas  or  Eliz- 
abeth Frys,  generally  think  this  sort  of  thing  madness, 
unless  when  they  read  of  it  in  the  Bible." 

"A  woman  can  hardly  ever  choose  in  that  way;  she  is 
dependent  on  what  happens  to  her.  She  must  take  meaner 
things,  because  only  meaner  things  are  Avithin  her  reach." 

"Why,  can  you  imagine  yourself  choosing  hardship  as 
the  better  lot?"  said  Felix,  looking  at  her  with  a  sudden 
question  in  his  eyes. 

"  Yes,  I  can,"  she  said,  flushing  over  neck  and  brow. 

Their  words  were  charged  with  a  meaning  dependent 
entirely  on  the  secret  consciousness  of  each.  I^othing  had 
been  said  which  was  necessarily  personal.  They  walked  a 
few  yards  along  the  road  b}^  which  they  had  come,  with- 
out further  speech,  till  Felix  said  gentl}^,  "Take  my 
arm."  She  took  it,  and  they  vralked  home  so,  entirely 
without  conversation.  Felix  vrns  struggling  as  a  firm  man 
struggles  with  a  temptation,  seeing  beyond  it  and  disbeliev- 
ing its  lying  promise.  Esther  was  struggling  as  a  woman 
struggles  with  the  yearning  for  some  expression  of  love, 
and  with  vexation  under  that  subjection  to  a  yearning 
which  is  not  likely  to  be  satisfied.  Each  was  conscious  of 
a  silence  which  each  was  unable  to  break,  till  they  entered 
Malthouse  Lane,  and  were  Avithin  a  few  yards  of  the 
minister's  door. 

"It  is  getting  dusk,"  Felix  then  said;  "will  Mr.  Lyon 
be  anxious  about  you?" 

"  No,  I  think  not.  Lyddy  would  tell  him  that  I  v.'ent 
out  with  you,  and  that  you  carried  a  large  stick,"  said 
Esther,  with  her  light  laugh. 

Felix  went  in  with  Esther  to  take  tea,  but  the  convers;:- 
tion  was  entirely  betv/een  him  and  Mr.  Lyon  about  the 
tricks  of  canvassing,  the  foolish  personality  of  the  placards, 
and  the  probabilities  of  Transomc's  return,  as  to  which 
Felix  declared  himself  to  have  become  indifferent.     This 


246  FELIX   HOLT, 

skepticism  made  the  minister  uneasy:  he  had  great  belief 
in  the  old  political  watchwords,  had  preached  that  univer- 
sal suffrage  and  no  ballot  were  agreeable  to  the  will  of 
God,  and  liked  to  believe  that  a  visible  "instrument"  was 
forthcoming  in  the  Eadical  Candidate  who  had  pro- 
nounced emphatically  against  Whig  finality.  Felix,  being 
in  a  perverse  mood,  contended  that  universal  suffrage 
would  be  equally  agreeable  to  the  devil;  that  he  would 
change  his  jDolitics  a  little,  have  a  larger  traffic,  and  see 
himself  more  fully  represented  in  Parliament. 

"Nay,  my  friend,"  said  the  minister,  "you  are  again 
sporting  with  paradox ;  for  you  will  not  deny  that  you 
glory  in  the  name  of  Eadical,  or  Koot-and-branch  man,  as 
they  said  in  the  great  times  when  Nonconformity  was  in 
its  giant  youth." 

"A  Eadical — yes;  but  I  want  to  go  to  some  roots  a  good 
deal  lower  down  than  the  franchise." 

"Truly  there  is  a  work  within  which  cannot  be  dis- 
pensed with;  but  it  is  our  preliminary  work  to  free  men 
from  the  stifled  life  of  political  nullity,  and  bring  them 
into  what  Milton  calls  'the  liberal  air, '"wherein  alone  can 
be  wrought  the  final  triumphs  of  the  Spirit." 

"With  all  my  heart.  But  while  Caliban  is  Caliban, 
though  you  multiply  him  by  a  million,  he'll  worship  every 
Trincuio  that  carries  a  bottle.  I  forget,  though  —  you 
don't  read  Shakespeare,  Mr.  Lyon." 

'•'I  am  bound  to  confess  that  I  have  so  far  looked  into 
a  volume  of  Esther's  as  to  conceive  your  meaning;  but 
the  fantasies  therein  Avere  so  little  to  be  reconciled  with  a 
steady  contemj)lation  of  that  divine  economy  which  is 
hidden  from  sense  and  revealed  to  faith,  that  I  forbore  the 
reading,  as  likely  to  perturb  my  ministrations." 

Esther  sat  by  in  unusual  silence.  The  conviction  that 
Felix  willed  her  exclusion  from  his  life  was  making  it 
plain  that  something  more  than  friendship  between  them 
was  not  so  thoroughly  out  of  the  question  as  slie  had 
always  inwardly  asserted.  In  her  pain  that  his  choice  lay 
aloof  from  her,  she  was  compelled  frankly  to  admit  to 
herself  the  longing  that  it  had  been  otherwise,  and  that 
he  had  entreated  her  to  share  his  difficult  life.  He  was 
like  no  one  else  to  her:  he  had  seemed  to  bring  at  once  a 
law,  and  the  love  that  gave  strength  to  obey  the  law.  Yet 
the  next  moment,  stung  by  his  independence  of  her,  she 
denied  that  she  loved  him;  she  had  only  longed  for  a  moral 


THE  RADICAL.  247 

support  under  the  negations  of  her  life.  If  she  were  not 
to  have  that  support,  all  effort  seemed  useless. 

Esther  had  been  so  long  used  to  hear  the  formulas  of 
her  father's  belief  without  feeling  or  understanding  them, 
that  they  had  lost  all  power  to  touch  her.  The  first  relig- 
ious experience  of  her  life — the  first  self -questioning,  the 
first  voluntary  subjection,  the  first  longing  to  acquire  the 
strength  of  greater  motives  and  obey  the  more  strenuous 
rule— had  come  to  her  through  Felix  Holt.  No  wonder 
that  she  felt  as  if  the  loss  of  him  were  inevitable  back- 
sliding. 

But  was  it  certain  that  she  should  lose  him  ?  She  did 
not  believe  that  he  was  really  indifferent  to  her. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII.   ' 


Titus.    But  what  says  Jupiter,  I  ask  thee  ? 
Clovm.  Alas,  sir,  I  know  not  Jupiter : 

I  never  drank  with  him  in  all  my  life. 

Titus  Andronicus. 

The  multiplication  of  uncomplimentary  placards  noticed 
by  Mr.  Lyon  and  Felix  Holt  was  one  of  several  signs  that 
the  days  of  nomination  and  election  were  approaching. 
The  presence  of  the  Revising  Barrister  in  Treby  was  not 
only  an  opportunity  for  all  persons  not  otherwise  busy  to 
show  their  zeal  for  the  purification  of  the  voting-lists,  but 
also  to  reconcile  private  ease  and  public  duty  by  standing 
about  the  streets  and  lounging  at  doors. 

It  was  no  light  business  for  Trebians  to  form  an  opinion; 
the  mere  fact  of  a  public  functionary  with  an  unfamiliar 
title  was  enough  to  give  them  pause,  as  a  premise  that  was 
not  to  be  quickly  started  from.  To  Mr.  Pink,  the  saddler, 
for  example,  until  some  distinct  injury  or  benefit  had 
accrued  to  him,  the  existence  of  the  Revising  Barrister 
was  like  the  existence  of  the  young  girajffe  which  Womb- 
well  had  lately  brought  into  those  parts — it  was  to  be 
contemplated,  and  not  criticised.  Mr.  Pink  professed  a 
deep-eyed  Toryism  ;  but  he  regarded  all  fault-finding  as 
Radical  and  somewhat  impious,  as  disturbing  to  trade,  and 
likely  to  offend  the  gentry  or  the  servants  through  whom 
their  harness  was  ordered  :  there  was  a  Nemesis  in  things 
which  made  objection  unsafe,  and  even  the  Reform  Bill 
was  a  sort  of  electric  eel  which  a  thriving  tradesman  had 


248  FELIX    HOLT, 

better  leave  alone.     It  was  only  the  "  Papists  "  who  lived 
far  enough  off  to  be  spoken  of  uncivilly. 

But  Mr.  Pink  was  fond  of  news,  which  he  collected  and 
retailed  with  perfect  impartiality,  noting  facts  and  reject- 
ing comments.  Hence  he  was  well  pleased  to  have  his 
shop  so  constant  a  place  of  resort  for  loungers,  that  to 
many  Trebians  there  was  a  strong  association  between  the 
pleasures  of  gossip  and  the  smell  of  leather.  He  had  the 
satisfaction  of  chalking  and  cutting,  and  of  keeping  his 
journeymen  close  at  work,  at  the  very  time  that  he  learned 
from  his  visitors  who  were  those  whose  votes  had  been 
called  in  question  before  His  Honor,  how  Lawyer  Jermyn 
had  been  too  much  for  Lawyer  Labron  about  Todd's 
cottages,  and  how,  in  the  opinion  of  some  townsmen,  this 
looking  into  the  value  of  people's  property,  and  swearing 
it  down  below  a  certain  sum,  was  a  nasty  inquisitorial 
kind  of  thing;  while  others  observed  that  being  nice  to  a 
few  pounds  was  all  nonsense — they  should  put  the  figure 
high  enough,  and  then  never  mind  if  a  voter's  qualifica- 
tion was  thereabouts.  But,  said  Mr.  Sims,  the  auctioneer, 
everything  was  done  for  the  sake  of  the  lawyers.  Mr. 
Pink  suggested  impartially  that  lawyers  must  live;  but 
Mr.  Sims,  having  a  ready  auctioneering  Avit,  did  not  sec 
that  so  many  of  them  need  live,  or  thai;  babies  were  born 
lawyers.  Mr.  Pink  felt  that  this  speculation  was  compli- 
cated by  the  ordering  of  side-saddles  for  lawyers'  daugh- 
ters, and,  returning  to  the  firm  ground  of  fact,  stated 
that  it  was  getting  dusk. 

The  dusk  seemed  deepened  the  next  moment  by  a  tall 
figure  obstructing  the  doorway,  at  sight  of  whom  Mr. 
Pink  rubbed  his  hands  and  smiled  and  bowed  more  than 
once,  with  evident  solicitude  to  show  honor  wliere  honor 
was  due,  while  he  said — 

"Mr.  Christian,  sir,  how  do  you  do,  sir?" 

Christian  answered  with  the  condescending  familiarity 
of  a  superior.  ''Very  badly,  I  can  tell  you,  with  these 
confounded  braces  that  you  were  to  make  such  a  fine  job 
of.     See,  old  fellow,  they've  burst  out  again." 

"Very  sorry,  sir.     Can  you  leave  them  with  me?" 

"Oh,  yes,  I'll  leave  them.  What's  the  news,  eh?"  sid 
Christian,  half  seating  himself  on  a  high  stool,  and  beating 
his  boot  with  a  hand-whip. 

"Well,  sir,  we  look  to  you  to  tell  us  that,"  said  Mr. 
Pink,  with  a  knowing  smile.  "You're  at  headquarters— 
eh,  sir?     That  was  what  I  said  to  Mr.  Scales  the  other 


THE   RADICAL.  249 

day.  He  came  up  for  some  straps,  Mr.  Scales  did,  and  he 
asked  that  question  in  pretty  near  the  same  terms  tliat 
you've  done,  sir,  and  I  answered  him,  as  I  may  say,  ditto. 
Not  meaning  any  disrespect  to  you,  sir,  but  a  waj  of 
speaking." 

"Come,  that's  gammon.  Pink,"  said  Christian.  ''You 
know  everything.  You  can  tell  me  if  you  will,  who  is  the 
fellow  employed  to  paste  up  Transome's  handbills?" 

"What  do  yotc  say,  Mr.  Sims?"  said  Pink,  looking  at 
tlie  auctioneer. 

"  Wliy,  you  know  and  I  know  well  enough.  It's  Tommy 
Trounsem — an  old,  crippling,  half-mad  fellow.  Most 
people  know  Tommy.  I've  employed  him  myself  for 
charity." 

"Where  shall  I  find  him?"  said  Christian. 

"At  the  Cross-Keys,  in  Pollard's  End,  most  likely," 
said  Mr.  Sims.  "I  don't  know  where  he  puts  himself 
when  he  isn't  at  the  public." 

"  He  was  a  stoutish  fellow  fifteen  year  ago,  when  he 
carried  pots,"  said  Mr.  Pink. 

"Ay,  and  has  snared  many  a  hare  in  his  time,"  said 
Mr.  Sims.  "But  he  was  always  a  little  cracked.  Lord 
bless  you !  he  used  to  swear  he  had  a  right  to  the  Transome 
estate." 

"Why,  what  put  that  notion  into  his  head?"  said 
Christian,  who  had  learned  more  tlian  he  expected. 

"  The  lawing,  sir — nothing  but  the  lawing  about  the 
estate.  There  Avas  a  deal  of  it  twenty  year  ago,"  said  Mr. 
Pink.  "  Tommy  happened  to  turn  up  hereabout  at  that 
time;  a  big,  lungeous  fellow,  who  would  speak  disrespect- 
fully of  hanybody." 

"Oh,  he  meant  no  harm,"  said  Mr.  Sims.  "He  was 
fond  of  a  drop  to  drink,  and  not  quite  right  in  the  upper 
story,  and  he  could  hear  no  difference  between  Trounsem 
and  Transome.  It's  an  odd  way  of  speaking  they  have  in 
that  part  where  he  was  born — a  little  north'ard.  You'll 
hear  it  in  his  tongue  now,  if  you  talk  to  him." 

"At  the  Cross-Keys  I  shall  find  him,  eh?"  said  Chris- 
tian, getting  off  his  stool.    "Good-day,  Pink — good-day." 

Christian  went  straight  from  the  saddler's  to  Quorlen's 
the  Tory  printer's,  whom  he  had  contrived  a  political 
spree.  Quorleii  Avas  a  new  man  in  Treby,  who  had  so 
reduced  the  trade  of  Doav,  the  old  hereditary  printer,  that 
Dow  had  lapsed  to  Whiggery  and  Radicalism  and  opinions 
in  general,  so  far  as  they  were  contented  to  express  them* 


250  FELIX   HOLT. 

selves  in  a  small  stock  of  types.  Quorlen  had  brought  his 
Duffield  wit  with  him,  and  insisted  that  religion  and  jok- 
ing were  the  handmaids  of  politics;  on  which  principle  he 
and  Christian  undertook  the  joking,  and  left  the  religion 
to  the  rector.  The  joke  at  present  in  question  was  a 
practical  one.  Christian,  turning  into  the  shop,  merely 
said,  "  I've  found  him  out — give  me  the  placards";  and, 
tucking  a  thickish  flat  bundle,  wrapped  in  a  black  glazed 
cotton  bag,  under  his  arm,  walked  out  into  the  dusk 
again. 

"  Suppose  now,"  he  said  to  himself,  as  he  strode  along — 
"  suppose  there  should  be  some  secret  to  be  got  out  of  this 
old  scamp,  or  some  notion  that's  as  good  as  a  secret  to 
those  who  know  how  to  use  it?  That  would  be  virtue 
rewarded.  But  I'm  afraid  the  old  tosspot  is  not  likely  to 
be  good  for  much.  There's  truth  in  wine,  and  there  may 
be  some  in  gin  and  muddy  beer;  but  whether  it's  truth 
worth  my  knowing,  is  another  cjuestion.  I've  got  plenty 
of  truth,  but  never  any  that  was  worth  a  sixpence  to  ine." 

The  Cross-Ke3\s  was  a  very  old-fashioned  "public":  its 
bar  was  a  big  rambling  kitchen,  witli  an  undulating  brick 
floor;  the  small -paned  windows  threw  an  interesting 
obscurity  over  the  far-off  dresser,  garnished  with  pewter 
and  tin,  and  with  large  dishes  tliat  seemed  to  speak  of 
better  times;  the  two  settles  were  half  pushed  under  the 
wide-mouthed  chimney;  and  the  grate  with  its  brick  hobs, 
massive  iron  crane,  and  various  pothooks,  suggested  a 
generous  plenty  possibly  existent  in  all  moods  and  tenses 
except  the  indicative  present.  One  way  of  getting  an  idea 
of  our  fellow-countrymen's  miseries  is  to  go  and  look  at 
their  pleasures.  The  Cross-Keys  had  a  fungous-featured 
landlord  and  a  yellow  sickly  landlady,  with  a  large  white 
kerchief  bound  round  her  cap,  as  if  her  head  had  recently 
required  surgery;  it  had  doctored  ale,  an  odor  of  bad 
tobacco,  and  remarkably  strong  cheese.  It  was  not  what 
Astrtea,  when  come  back,  might  be  expected  to  approve  as 
the  scene  of  ecstatic  enjoyment  for  the  beings  whose 
special  prerogative  it  is  to  lift  their  sublime  faces  toward 
heaven.  Still,  there  was  ample  space  on  the  hearth — 
accommodation  for  narrative  bagmen  or  boxmen — room 
for  a  man  to  stretch  his  legs;  his  brain  was  not  pressed 
upon  by  a  white  wall  within  a  yard  of  him,  and  the  light 
did  not  stare  in  mercilessly  on  bare  ugliness,  turning  the 
fire  to  ashes.     Compared   with   some  beerhouses  of  this 


THE   RADICAL.  351 

more  advanced  period,  the  Cross-Keys  of  that  day  pre- 
sented a  high  standard  of  pleasure. 

Bat  tliough  this  venerable  "pnblic"  had  not  failed  to 
share  in  the  recent  political  excitement  of  drinking,  the 
pleasnres  it  offered  were  not  at  this  early  hour  of  the  even- 
ing sought  by  a  numerous  company.  There  were  only 
three  or  four  pipes  being  smoked  by  the  firelight,  but  it 
was  enough  for  Christian  when  he  found  that  one  of  these 
was  being  smoked  by  the  bill-sticker,  whose  large  flat  bas- 
ket, stuffed  with  placards,  leaned  near  him  against  the 
settle.  So  splendid  ^.n  apparition  as  Christian  was  not  a 
little  startling  at  the  Cross-Keys,  and  was  gazed  at  in 
expectant  silence;  but  he  was  a  stranger  in  Pollard's  End, 
and  was  taken  for  the  highest  style  of  traveler  when  he 
declared  that  he  was  deucedly  thirsty,  ordered  sixpenny- 
worth  of  gin  and  a  large  jug  of  water,  and,  putting  a  few 
drops  of  the  spirit  into  his  own  glass,  invited  Tommy 
Trounsem,  who  sat  next  him,  to  lieliJ  himself.  Tommy 
was  not  slower  than  a  shaking  hand  obliged  him  to  be  in 
acceptmg  this  invitation.  He  was  a  tall,  broad-shouldered 
old  fellow,  who  had  once  been  good-looking;  but  his 
cheeks  and  chest  were  both  hollow  now,  and  his  limbs 
were  shrunken. 

''You've  got  some  bills  there,  master,  eh?"  said  Chris- 
tian, pointing  to  the  basket.  "Is  there  an  auction  com- 
ing oil?" 

"Auction?  no,"  said  Tommy,  with  a  gruff  hoarseness, 
which  was  the  remnant  of  a  Jovial  bass,  and  Avith  an 
accent  which  differed  from  theTrebian  fitfully,  as  an  early 
habit  is  wont  to  reassert  itself.  "I've  nouglit  to  do  wi' 
auctions;  I'm  a  pol'tical  charicter.  It's  me  am  getting 
Trounsem  into  Parl'ment." 

"Trounsem,  said  he,"  the  landlord  observed,  taking  out 
his  pipe  with  a  low  laugh.  "It's  Transonic,  sir.  Maybe 
you  don't  belong  to  this  part.  It's  the  candidate  'ull  do 
most  for  the  working  men,  and's  proved  it  too,  in  the  way 
o'  being  open-handed  and  wishing  'em  to  enjoy  themselves. 
If  I'd  twenty  votes,  I'd  give  one  for  Transome  and  I  don't 
care  who  hears  me." 

The  landlord  peered  out  from  his  funguous  cluster  of 
features  with  a  beery  confidence  that  the  high  figure 
of  twenty  had  somehow  raised  the  hypothetic  value  of 
his  vote. 

"Spilkins,  now,"  said  Tommy,  waving  his  hand  to  the 
landlord,  "  you   let  one  genelman  speak  to  another,  will 


252  FELIX  HOLT, 

you?  This  genelman  wants  to  know  about  my  bills.  Does 
lie,  or  doesn't  he?" 

"What  then?  I  spoke  according,"  said  the  landlord, 
mildly  holding  his  own. 

"You're  all  very  well,  Siiilkins,"  returned  Tommy, 
"'  bat  y'aren't  me.  I  know  what  the  bills  are.  It's  public 
business.  I'm  none  o'  your  common  bill-stickers,  master; 
I've  left  off  sticking  up  ten  guineas  reward  for  a  sheep- 
stealer,  or  low  stuff  like  that.  These  are  Trounsem's 
bills;  and  I'm  the  rightful  family,  and  so  I  give  him  a 
lift.  A  Trounsem  I  am,  and  a  Trounsem.  I'll  be  buried; 
and  if  Old  K^ick  tries  to  lay  hold  on  me  for  poaching,  I'll 
say,  'You  be  hanged  for  a  lawyer.  Old  Nick;  every  hare 
and  pheasant  on  the  Trounsem's  land  is  mine';  and  what 
rises  the  family,  rises  old  Tommy;  and  we're  going  to  get 
into  Parl'ment — that's  the  long  and  the  short  on't,  master. 
And  I'm  the  head  o'  the  family,  and  I  stick  the  bills. 
There's  Johnsons,  and  Thomsons,  and  Jacksons,  and  Bill- 
sons;  but  I'm  a  Trounsem,  I  am.  What  do  you  say  to 
that,  master?" 

This  appeal,  accompanied  by  a  blow  on  the  table,  while 
the  landlord  winked  at  the  company,  was  addressed  to 
Christian,  who  answered,  with  severe  gravity — 

"I  say  there  isn't  any  work  more  honorable  than  bill- 
sticking." 

"No,  no,"  said  Tommy,  wagging  his  head  from  side  to 
side.  "I  thought  you'd  come  in  to  that.  I  thought 
you'd  know  better  than  say  contrairy.  But  I'll  shake 
hands  wi'  you;  I  don't  want  to  knock  any  man's  head  off. 
I'm  a  good  chap — a  sound  crock — an  old  family  kep'  out  o' 
my  rights.     I  shall  go  to  heaven,  for  all  Old  Nick." 

As  these  celestial  prospects  might  imply  that  a  little  extra 
gin  was  beginning  to  tell  on  the  bill-sticker.  Christian 
wanted  to  lose  no  time  in  arresting  his  attention.  He  laid 
his  hand  on  Tommy's  arm  and  spoke  emphatically. 

"  But  I'll  tell  you  what  you  bill-stickers  are  not  up  to. 
You  should  be  on  the  look-out  when  Debarry's  side  have 
stuck  up  fresh  bills,  and  go  and  paste  yours  over  them.  I 
know  Avhere  there's  a  lot  of  Debarry's  bills  now.  Come 
along  with  me  and  I'll  show  you.  We'll  paste  them  over, 
and  then  we'll  come  back  and  treat  the  compan}^" 

"  Hooray  ! "  said  Tommy.     "  Let's  be  off  then." 

He  was  one  of  the  thoroughly  inured,  originally  hale 
drunkards,  and  did  not  easily  lose  his  head  or  legs  or  the 
ordinary  amount  of  method  in  his  talk.     Strangers  often 


THE    KADICAL.  253 

supposed  that  Tommy  was  tipsy  when  he  had  only  taken 
what  he  called  ''one  blessed  pint,"  chiefly  from  that  glo- 
rious contentment  with  himself  and  his  adverse  fortunes 
which  is  not  usually  characteristic  of  the  sober  Briton, 
lie  knocked  tlie  ashes  out  of  his  pipe,  seized  his  paste- 
vessel  and  his  basket,  and  prepared  to  start  with  a 
satisfactory  promise  that  he  could  know  what  he  was 
about. 

The  landlord  and  some  others  had  confidently  concluded 
tliat  they  understood  all  about  Christian  now.  He  was  a 
Transome's  man,  come  to  see  after  the  bill-sticking  in 
Transome's  interest.  The  landlord,  telling  his  yellow 
wife  snappishly  to  open  the  door  for  the  gentleman,  hoped 
soon  to  see  him  again. 

"This  is  a  Transome's  house,  sir,"  he  observed,  "in 
respect  of  entertaining  customers  of  that  color.  I  do  my 
duty  as  a  publican,  which,  if  I  know  it,  is  to  turn  back  no 
genelman's  money.  I  say,  give  every  genelman  a  chance, 
and  the  more  the  merrier,  in  Parl'ment  and  out  of  it. 
And  if  anybody  says  they  want  but  two  Parl'ment  men,  I 
say  it  'ud  be  better  for  trade  if  there  was  six  of  'em,  and 
voters  according." 

"Ay,  ay,"  said  Christian;  "you're  a  sensible  man, 
landlord.    You  don't  mean  to  vote  for  Debarry,  then,  eh?" 

"  Not  nohow,"  said  the  landlord,  thinking  that  where 
negatives  were  good  the  more  you  had  of  them  the  better. 

As  soon  as  the  door  liad  closed  behind  Christian  and  his 
new  companion  Tommy  said — 

"Now,  master,  if  you're  to  be  my  lantern,  don't  you  be 
a  Jacky  Lantern,  which  I  take  to  mean  one  as  leads  you 
the  wrong  way.  For  I'll  tell  you  what — if  you've  had  the 
luck  to  fall  in  wi'  Tommv  Trounsem,  don't  you  let  him 
drop." 

"  No,  no — to  be  sure  not,"  said  Christian.  "  Come 
along  here.     We'll  go  to  the  Back  Brewery  wall  first." 

"No,  no;  don't  you  let  me  drop.  Give  me  a  shilling 
any  day  you  like ,  and  I'll  tell  you  more  nor  you'll  hear 
from  Spilkins  in  a  week.  There  isna  many  men  like  me. 
I  carried  pots  for  fifteen  year  off  and  on — what  do  you 
think  o'  that  now,  for  a  man  as  might  ha'  lived  up  there  at 
Trounsem  Park,  and  snared  his  own  game?  Which  I'd  ha' 
done,"  said  Tommy,  wagging  his  head  at  Christian  in  the 
dimness  undisturbed  by  gas.  "  None  o'  your  shooting  for 
me  — it's  two  to  one  you'll  miss.  Snaring's  more  fishing- 
like.    You  bait  your  hook,  and  if  it  isna  the  fishes'  good- 


254  FELTX    HOLT, 

M'ill  to  come,  that's  nothing  again'  the  sporting  genelmau. 
And  that's  what  I  say  by  snaring." 

"  But  if  you'd  a  right  to  the  Transome  estate,  how  was 
it  you  were  kept  out  of  it,  old  boy?  It  was-  some  foul 
shame  or  other,  eh  ?  " 

''It's  the  law — that's  what  it  is.  You're  a  good  sort  of 
chap;  I  don't  mind  telling  you.  There's  folks  born  to 
property,  and  there's  folks  catch  hold  on  it;  and  the  law's 
made  for  them  as  catch  hold.  I'm  pretty  deep;  I  see  a  good 
deal  further  than  Spilkins.  There  was  Ned  Patch,  the 
peddler,  used  to  say  to  me,  '  You  canna  read.  Tommy,'  says 
he.  'No;  thank  you,'  says  I;  'I'm  not  going  to  crack  my 
headpiece  to  make  myself  as  big  a  fool  as  you.'  I  was  fond 
o'  Ned.     Many's  the  pot  we've  liad  together." 

"I  see  well  enough  you're  deep,  Tommy.  How  came 
you  to  know  you  were  born  to  property?" 

"  It  was  the  regester — the  parish  regester,"  said  Tommy, 
with  his  knowing  wag  of  the  head,  "that  shows  as  you 
was  born.  I  allays  felt  it  inside  me  as  I  was  somebody, 
and  I  could  see  other  chaps  thought  it  on  me  too;  and  so 
one  day  at  Littleshaw,  where  I  kep  ferrits  and  a  little  bit 
of  a  public,  there  come  a  fine  man  looking  after  me,  and 
v.'alking  me  up  and  down  wi'  questions.  And  I  made  out 
from  the  clerk  as  he'd  been  at  the  regester;  and  I  gave  the 
clerk  a  pot  or  two,  and  he  got  it  off  our  parson  as  the  name 
o'  Trounsem  was  a  great  name  hereabout.  And  1  waits  a 
bit  for  my  fine  man  to  come  again.  Thinks  I,  if  there's 
property  wants  a  right  owner,  1  shall  be  called  for;  for  I 
didn't  know  the  law  then.  And  I  waited  and  waited,  till 
I  see'd  no  fun  i'  waiting.  So  I  parted  with  my  public  and 
my  ferrets  —  for  she  was  dead  a'ready,  my  wife  was,  and  I 
hadn't  no  cumbrance.  And  off  I  started  a  pretty  long 
walk  to  this  country-side,  for  I  could  walk  for  a  wager  in 
them  days." 

"Ah!  well,  here  we  are  at  the  Back  Brewery  M^all.  Put 
down  your  paste  and  your  basket  now,  old  boy,  and  I'll 
help  you.  You  paste,  and  I'll  give  you  the  bills,  and  then 
you  can  go  on  talking." 

Tommy  obeyed  automatically,  for  he  was  now  carried 
away  by  the  rare  opportunity  of  talking  to  a  new  list- 
ener, and  was  only  eager  to  go  on  witli  his  story.  As 
soon  as  his  back  was  turned,  and  he  was  stooping  over  his 
paste-pot.  Christian,  with  quick  adroitness,  exchanged  the 
placards  in  his  own  bag  for  those  in  Tomm3'''s  basket. 
Christian's  placards  had  not  been  printed  at  Treby,  but 


THE    KADTCAL.  255 

ft 

frere  a  new  lot  which  had  been  sent  from  Duflfiekl  that 
very  day — ••'highly  spiced/' Quorlen  had  said,  "coming 
from  a  pen  that  was  np  to  that  sort  of  thing/'  Christian 
had  read  the  first  of  the  sheaf,  and  supposed  they  were  all 
alike.     He  proceeded  to  hand  one  to  Tommy,  and  said — 

''Here,  old  boy,  paste  this  over  the  other.  And  so, 
when  you  got  into  this  country-side,  Avhat  did  you  do  ?" 

"  Wliy,  I  put  up  at  a  good  public  and  ordered  the  best, 
[or  Fd  a  bit  o'  money  in  my  pocket;  and  I  axed  about,  and 
tliey  said  to  me,  if  it's  Trounsem  business  you're  after, 
you  go  to  Lawyer  Jermyn.  And  I  went;  and  says  I,  going 
along,  he's  maybe  the  fine  man  as  walked  me  up  and 
down.  But  no  such  thing.  I'll  tell  you  what  Lawyer 
Jermyn  was.  He  stands  you  there,  and  holds  you  away 
from  him  wi'a  pole  tlirec  yard  long.  He  stares  at  you, 
and  says  nothing,  till  you  feel  like  a  Tomfool;  and  then 
he  threats  you  to  set  the  justice  on  you;  and  then  he's 
sorry  for  you,  and  hands  you  money,  and  preaches  you  a 
sarmint,  and  tells  you  you're  a  poor  man,  and  he'll  give 
you  a  bit  of  advice — and  youM  better  not  be  meddling  wi 
things  belonging  to  the  law,  else  you'll  be  catched  up  in  a 
big  wheel  and  fly  to  bits.  And  I  went  of  a  cold  sweat, 
and  I  wished  I  might  never  come  i'  sight  o'  Lawyer  Jermyn 
again.  But  he  says,  if  you  keep  i'  this  neighborhood, 
behave  yourself  well,  and  I'll  pertect  you.  I  were  deep 
enough,  but  it's  no  use  being  deep,  'cause  you  can  never 
know  the  law.  And  there's  times  when  the  deepest  fellow's 
worst  frightened." 

"Yes,  yes.  There!  Now  for  another  placard.  And 
so  that  was  all  ?  " 

"All?"  said  Tommy,  turning  round  and  holding  the 
paste-brush  in  suspense.  "Don't  you  be  running  too 
quick.  Thinks  I,  'I'll  meddle  no  more.  I've  got  a  bit  o' 
money — I'll  buy  a  basket,  and  be  a  potman.  It's  a  pleas- 
;int  life.  I  shall  live  at  publics  and  see  the  world,  and 
pick  'quaintance,  and  get  a  chanch  penny.'  But  when  I'd 
turned  into  the  Red  Lion,  and  got  myself  warm  again  wi' 
a  drop  o'  hot,  something  jumps  into  my  head.  Thinks  I, 
Tommy,  you've  done  finely  for  yourself:  you're  a  rat  as 
lias  broke  up  your  house  to  take  a  journey,  and  show  your- 
self to  a  ferret.  And  then  it  jumps  into  my  head:  I'd 
once  two  ferrets  as  turned  on  one  another,  and  the  little 
un  killed  the  big  un.  Says  I  to  the  lancUadj^  'Missis, 
could  you  tell  me  of  a  lawyer,'  says  I,  'not  very  big  or 
fine,  but  a  second  size — a  pig-potato,  like?'     'Th^t  J 


256  FELIX   HOLT 


can/  says  she;  'there's  one  now  in  the  bar  parlor.'  'Be 
so  kind  as  bring  ns  together/  says  I.  And  she  cries  out — 
I  think  I  hear  her  now — '  Mr,  Johnson  ! '  And  what  do 
you  think  ?  " 

At  this  crisis  in  Tommy's  story  the  gray  clouds,  Avhich 
had  been  gradually  thinning,  opened  sufficiently  to  let 
down  the  sudden  moonlight,  and  show  his  poor  battered 
old  figure  and  face  in  the  attitude  and  with  the  expres- 
sion of  a  narrator  sure  of  the  coming  effect  on  his  auditor; 
his  body  and  neck  stretched  a  little  on  one  side,  and  his 
paste-brush  held  out  with  an  alarming  intention  of  tapping 
Christian's  coat-sleeve  at  the  right  moment.  Christian 
started  to  a  safe  distance,  and  said — 

"It's  Avonderful.     I  can't  tell  what  to  think." 

''Then  never  do  you  deny  Old  Nick,"  said  Tommy,  with 
solemnity.  "I've  believed  in  him  more  ever  since.  Who 
was  Johnson?  Why.  Johnson  was  the  fine  man  as  had 
walked  me  up  and  down  with  questions.  And  I  out  with 
it  to  him  then  and  there.  And  he  speaks  me  civil,  and 
says,  'Come  away  wi'  me,  my  good  fellow.'  And  he  told 
me  a  deal  o'  laAV.  And  he  says,  '  Whether  you're  a  Tommy 
Trounsem  or  no,  it's  no  good  to  you,  but  only  to  them  as 
have  got  hold  o'  the  property.  If  you  was  a  Tommy 
Trounsem  twenty  times  over,  it  'ud  be  no  good,  for  the 
law's  bought  you  out;  and  your  life's  no  good,  only  to  them 
as  have  catched  hold  o'  the  property.  The  more  you  live, 
the  more  they'll  stick  in.  Not  as  they  want  you  now,' 
says  he — '  you're  no  good  to  anybody,  and  you  might  howl 
like  a  dog  foriver,  and  the  law  'ud  take  no  notice  on  ycu.' 
Says  Johnson,  '  I'm  doing  a  kind  thing  by  you  to  tell  you. 
For  that's  the  law.'  And  if  you  want  to  know  the  law, 
master,  you  ask  Johnson.  I  heard  'em  say  after,  as  he  was 
an  understrapper  at  Jermyn's.  I've  never  forgot  it  from 
that  day  to  this.  But  I  saw  clear  enough,  as  if  the  law 
hadn't  been  again'  me,  the  Trounsem  estate  'ud  ha'  been 
mine.  But  folks  are  fools  hereabouts,  and  I've  left  off 
talking.  The  more  you  tell  'em  the  truth,  the  more  they'll 
niver  believe  you.  And  I  went  and  bought  my  basket  and 
the  pots,  and " 

"Come  then,  fire  away,"  said  Christian.  "Here's 
another  placard." 

"I'm  getting  a  bit  dry,  master." 

"Well,  then,  make  haste,  and  you'll  have  something  to 
drink  all  the  sooner." 

Tommy  turned  to  his  work  again,  and  Christian^  con- 


THE    EADICAL.  257 

tinning  his  help,  said,  "And  how  long  has  Mr.  Jermyn 
been  employing  you?" 

"Oh,  no  particular  time — off  and  on;  but  a  week  or  two 
ago  he  sees  me  upo'  the  road,  and  speaks  to  me  uncommon 
civil,  and  tells  me  to  go  up  to  his  office  and  he'll  give  me 
employ.  And  I  was  noways  unwilling  to  stick  the  bills  to 
get  the  family  into  Parl'ment.  For  there's  no  man  can 
help  the  law.  And  the  family's  the  family,  whether  you 
carry  pots  or  no.  Master,  Pm  uncommon  dry;  my  head's 
a-turning  round;  it's  talking  so  long  on  end." 

The  unwonted  excitement  of  poor  Tommy's  memory  was 
producing  a  reaction, 

"Well,  Tommy,"  said  Christian,  who  had  just  made  a 
discovery  among  the  placards  which  altered  the  bent  of  his 
thoughts,  "you  may  go  back  to  the  Cross-Keys  now,  if  you 
like;  here's  a  half-crown  for  you  to  sj^end  handsomely.  I 
can't  go  back  there  myself  just  yet;  but  you  may  give  my 
respects  to  Spilkins,  and  mind  you  paste  the  rest  of  the 
bills  carlv  to-morrow  morninsr." 

"Ay,  ay.  But  don't  you  believe  too  much  i'  Spilkins," 
said  Tommy,  pocketing  the  half-crown,  and  showing  his 
gratitude  by  giving  this  advice — "'  he^s  no  harm  much — 
but  weak.  He  thinks  he's  at  the  bottom  o'  things  because 
he  scores  you  up.  But  I  bear  liim  no  ill-will.  Tommy 
Trounscm's  a  good  chap;  and  any  day  .you  like  to  give  me 
half-a-crown,  I'll  tell  you  the  same  story  over  again.  Not 
now;  I'm  dry.  Come,  help  me  up  wi'  these  things;  you're 
a  younger  chap  than  me.  Well,  I'll  tell  Spilkins  you'll 
come  again  another  day." 

The  moonlight,  which  had  lit  up  poor  Tommy's  orator- 
ical attitude,  had  served  to  light  up  for  Christian  the  print 
of  the  placards.  He  had  expected  the  copies  to  be  various, 
and  had  turned  them  half  over  at  different  depths  of  the 
sheaf  before  drawing  out  those  he  offered  to  the  bill-sticker. 
Suddenly  the  clearer  light  had  shown  him  on  one  of  them 
a  name  which  was  just  then  especially  interesting  to  him, 
and  all  the  more  when  occurring  in  a  placard  intended 
to  dissuade  the  electors  of  North  Loamshire  from  voting 
for  the  heir  of  the  Transomes.  He  hastily  turned  over 
the  bills  that  preceded  and  succeeded,  that  he  might  draw 
out  and  carry  away  all  of  this  pattern;  for  it  might  turn 
out  to  Ije  wiser  for  him  not  to  contribute  to  the  publicity  of 
handbills  wliich  contained  allusions  to  Bvcliffe  versus  Tran- 
some.  There  were  about  a  dozen  of  them;  he  pressed  them 
together  and  thrust  them  into  his  pocket,  returning  all  the 

17 


258  FELIX   HOLT, 

lest  to  Tommy's  basket.  To  take  away  this  dozen  might 
v't  be  to  prevent  similar  bills  from  being  posted  up  else- 
where, but  he  had  reason  to  believe  that  these  were  all  of 
the  same  kind  which  had  been  sent  to  Treby  from  Dulfield. 

Christian's  interest  in  his  practical  joke  had  died  out 
like  a  morning  rushlight.  Apart  from  this  discovery  in 
the  placards,  old  Tommy's  story  had  some  indications  in 
it  that  were  worth  pondering  over.  Where  was  that  well- 
informed  Johnson  now?  Was  he  still  an  understrapper  of 
Jermyn's? 

With  this  matter  in  his  thoughts,  Christian  only  turned 
in  hastily  at  Quorlen's,  thre^'  down  the  black  bag  which 
contained  the  captured  Eadical  handbills,  said  he  had  done 
the  job,  and  hurried  back  to  the  Manor  that  he  might 
study  his  problem. 


CHAPTER  XXIX. 


I  doe  believe  that,  as  the  gall  has  severall  receptacles  in  several  creatures, 
soe  there's  scarce  any  creature  but  hath  that  emunctoi-ye  somewhere.— SiF 
TH0JL4S  Browne. 

Fancy  what  a  game  at  chess  would  be  if  all  the  chessmen 
had  passions  and  intellects,  more  or  less  small  and  cunning: 
if  you  were  not  only  uncertain  about  your  adversary's 
men,  but  a  little  uncertain  about  your  own;  if  your  knight 
could  shuffle  himself  on  to  a  new  square  by  the  sly;  if 
your  bishop,  in  disgust  at  your  castling,  could  wheedle 
your  pawns  out  of  their  places;  and  if  your  pawns,  hating 
you  because  they  are  pawns,  could  make  away  from  their 
appointed  posts  that  you  might  get  checkmate  on  a  sudden. 
You  might  be  the  longest-headed  of  deductive  reasoners, 
and  yet  you  might  be  beaten  by  your  own  pawns.  You 
would  be  especially  likely  to  be  beaten,  if  you  depended 
arrogantly  on  your  mathematical  imagination,  and  regarded 
your  passionate  pieces  with  contempt. 

Yet  this  imaginary  chess  is  easy  compared  with  the 
game  a  man  has  to  play  against  his  fellow-men  with  other 
lellow-men  for  his  instruments.  He  thinks  himself  saga- 
cious, perhaps,  because  he  trusts  no  bond  except  that  of 
self-interest:  but  the  only  self-interest  he  can  safely  rely 
on  is  what  seems  to  be  such  to  the  mind  he  would  use  or 
govern.     Can  he  ever  be  sure  of  knowing  this.'' 


THE   RADICAL.  .  259 

Matthew  Jermyn  was  under  no  misgivings  as  to  the 
fealty  of  Johnson.  He  had  "  been  the  making  of  John- 
son"; and  this  seems  to  many  men  a  reason  for  expecting 
devotion,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  they  themselves,  though 
very  fond  of  their  own  persons  and  lives,  are  not  at  all 
devoted  to  the  Maker  they  believe  in.  Johnson  was  a 
most  serviceable  subordinate.  Being  a  man  who  aimed  at 
respectability,  a  family  man,  who  had  a  good  church-pew, 
subscribed  for  engravings  of  banquet  pictures  where  there 
were  portraits  of  political  celebrities,  and  wished  his  ciiil- 
dren  to  be  more  unquestionably  genteel  than  their  fatlier, 
he  presented  all  the  more  numerous  handles  of  -svorldly 
'notive  by  which  a  judicious  superior  might  keep  a  hold 
on  him.  But  this  useful  regard  to  respectability  had  its 
inconvenience  in  relation  to  such  a  superior:  it  was  a 
mark  of  some  vanity  and  some  pride,  which,  if  they  were 
not  touched  just  in  the  right  handling-place,  were  liable 
to  become  raw  and  sensitive.  Jermyn  was  aware  of 
Johnson's  weaknesses,  and  thought  he  had  flattered  them 
sufficiently.  But  on  the  point  of  knowing  when  we  are 
disagreeable,  our  human  nature  is  fallible.  Our  lavender- 
water,  our  smiles,  our  compliments,  and  other  polite  falsi- 
ties, are  constantly  offensive,  when  m  the  very  nature  of 
them  they  can  only  be  meant  to  attract  admiration  and 
regard.  .Jermyn  had  often  been  unconsciously  disagree- 
able to  Johnson,  over  and  above  the  constant  offense  of 
being  an  ostentatious  patron.  He  would  never  let  John- 
son dine  with  his  wife  and  daughters;  he  would  not  him- 
self dine  at  .Johnson's  house  when  he  was  in  town.  He 
often  did  what  was  equivalent  to  poohpoohing  his  conver- 
sation by  not  even  appearing  to  listen,  and  by  suddenly 
cutting  it  short  with  a  query  on  a  new  subject.  Jermyn 
was  able  and  politic  enough  to  have  commanded  a  great 
deal  of  success  in  his  life,  but  he  could  not  help  being 
handsome,  arrogant,  fond  of  being  heard,  indisposed  to 
any  kind  of  comradeship,  amorous  and  bland  toward 
women,  cold  and  self-contained  toward  men.  You  will 
hear  very  strong  denials  that  an  attorney's  being  hand- 
some could  enter  into  the  dislike  he  excited;  but  conversa- 
tion consists  a  good  deal  in  the  denial  of  what  is  true. 
From  the  British  point  of  view  masculine  beauty  is 
regarded  very  much  as  it  is  in  the  drapery  business: — 
as  good  solely  for  the  fancy  department — for  young  noble- 
men, artists,  poets,  and  the  clergy.  Some  one  wlio,  like 
Mr.  Liugon,  was   disposed  to  revile  Jermyn  (perhaps  it 


260  ^    FELIX   HOLT, 

was  Sir  Maximiis),  had  called  him  "a  cursed,  sleek,  hand- 
some, long-winded,  overbearing  sycophant ";  epithets  which 
expressed,  rather  confusedly,  the  mingled  character  of  the 
dislike  he  excited.  And  serviceable  John  Johnson,  him- 
self sleek,  and  mindful  about  his  broadcloth  and  his 
cambric  fronts,  had  what  he  considered  ''spirit"  enough 
within  him  to  feel  that  dislike  of  Jerniyn  gradually  gath- 
ering force  through  years  of  obligation  and  subjection,  till 
it  had  become  an  actuating  motive  disposed  to  use  an 
opportunity;  if  not  to  watch  for  one. 

It  was  not  this  motive,  however,  but  rather  the  ordinary 
course  of  business,  which  accounted  for  Johnson^s  playing 
a  double  part  as  an  electioneering  agent.  What  men  do 
in  elections  is  not  to  be  classed  either  among  sins  or  marks 
of  grace:  it  would  be  profane  to  include  business  in 
religion, .and  conscience  refers  to  failure,  not  to  success. 
8till,  the  sense  of  being  galled  by  Jermyn's  harness  was 
an  additional  reason  for  cultivating  all  relations  that  were 
independent  of  him;  and  pique  at  Harold  Transome's 
behavior  to  him  in  Jermyn's  office  perhaps  gave  all  the 
more  zest  to  Johnson's  use  of  his  pen  and  ink  when  he 
wrote  a  handbill  in  the  service  of  Garstiu,  and  Garstin's 
incomparable  agent.  Putty,  full  of  innuendoes  against 
Harold  Transome,  as  a  descendant  of  the  Durfey-Tran- 
somes.  It  is  a  natural  subject  of  self-congratulation  to  a 
man,  when  special  knowledge,  gained  long  ago  without 
any  forecast,  turns  out  to  iifford  a  special  inspiration  in  the 
present;  and  Johnson  felt  a  new  pleasure  in  the  conscious- 
ness that  he  of  all  people  in  the  world  next  to  Jerm3m  had 
the  most  intimate  knowledge  of  the  Transome  affairs. 
Still  better — some  of  these  affairs  were  secrets  of  Jermyn's. 
If  in  an  unco  plimentary  spirit  he  might  have  been  called 
Jermyn's  "man  of  straw,"  it  was  a  satisfaction  to  know 
that  the  unreality  of  the  man  John  Johnson  was  confined 
to  his  appearance  in  annuity  deeds,  and  that  elsewhere  he 
was  solid,  locomotive,  and  capable  of  remembering  any- 
thing for  his  own  pleasure  and  benefit.  To  act  with 
doubleness  towards  a  man  whose  own  conduct  was 
double,  was  so  near  an  approach  to  virtue  that  it 
deserved  to  be  called  by  no  meaner  name  than  diplo- 
macy. 

By  such  causes  it  came  to  pass  that  Christian  held  in 
his  hands  a  bill  in  which  Jermyn  was  playfully  alluded  to 
as  Mr.  German  Cozen,  who  won  games  by  clever  shuffling 
and  odd  tricks  without  any  honor,  and  backed  Durfeys' 


THE    RADICAL.  261 

crib  against  Bycliffe  —  in  which  it  was  adroitl}'  implied 
that  the  so-called  head  of  the  Transomes  was  only  the 
tail  of  the  Durfeys  —  and  that  some  said  the  Durfeys 
would  have  died  out  and  left  their  nest  empty  if  it  had 
not  been  for  their  German  Cozen. 

Johnson  had  not  dared  to  use  any  recollections  except 
such  as  might  credibly  exist  in  other  minds  besides  his 
own.  In  the  truth  of  the  case,  no  one  but  himself  had 
the  prompting  to  recall  these  out-worn  scandals;  but  it 
was  likely  enough  that  such  foul-winged  things  should  be 
revived  by  election  heats  for  Johnson  to  escape  all  sus- 
picion. 

Christian  could  gather  only  dim  and  uncertain  inferences 
from  this  flat  irony  and  heavy  joking;  but  one  chief  thing 
was  clear  to  him.  He  had  been  right  in  his  conjecture 
that  Jermyn's  interest  about  Bycliffe  had  its  source  in 
some  claim  of  Bycliffe's  on  the  Transome  proi^erty.  And 
then,  there  was  that  story  of  the  old  bill-sticker's,  which, 
closely  considered,  indicated  that  the  right  of  the  present 
Transomes  depended,  or  at  least,  had  depended,  on  the 
continuance  of  some  other  lives.  Christian  in  his  time 
had  gathered  enough  legal  notions  to  be  aware  that  pos- 
session by  one  man  sometimes  depended  on  the  life  of 
another;  that  a  man  might  sell  his  own  interest  in  prop- 
erty, and  the  interest  of  his  descendants,  while  a  claim  on 
that  property  would  still  remain  to  some  else  than  the 
purchaser,  supposing  the  descendants  became  extinct,  and 
the  interest  they  had  sold  were  at  an  end.  But  under 
what  conditions  the  claim  might  be  valid  or  void  in  any 
particular  case,  was  all  darkness  to  him.  Suppose  Bycliffe 
had  any  such  claim  on  the  Transome  estates:  how  was 
Christian  to  know  whether  at  the  present  moment  it  was 
worth  anything  more  than  a  bit  of  rotten  parchment? 
Old  Tommy  Trounsem  had  said  that  Johnson  knew  all 
about  it.  But  even  if  Johnson  were  still  above-ground  — 
and  all  Johnsons  are  mortal  —  he  jnight  still  be  an  under- 
strapper of  Jermyn's,  in  wliich  case  his  knowledge  would 
be  on  the  wrong  side  of  the  hedge  for  the  purposes  of 
Henry  Scaddon.  His  immediate  care  must  be  to  find  out 
all  he  could  about  Johnson.  He  blamed  himself  for  not 
having  questioned  Tommy  further  while  he  had  him  at 
command;  but  on  this  head  the  bill-sticker  could  hardly 
know  more  than  the  less  dilapidated  denizens  of  Treby. 

Now  it  had  happened  that  during  the  Aveeks  in  which 
Christian  had  been  at  work  trying  to  solve  the  enigma  o,^ 


262  FELIX   HOLT, 

Jerm3ai's  interest  about  Byclifie;,  Joliuson's  mind  also  had 
been  somewhat  occupied  with  suspicion  and  conjecture  as 
to  new  information  on  the  subject  of  the  old  Bycliffe 
claims  which  Jermyn  intended  to  conceal  from  him.  The 
letter  -which,  after  his  interview  with  Christian,  Jermyn 
had  written  with  a  sense  of  perfect  safety  to  his  faithful 
ally  Johnson,  was,  as  we  know,  written  to  a  Johnson  who 
had  found  his  self-love  incompatible  with  that  faithful- 
ness of  which  it  was  supposed  to  be  the  foundation.  Any- 
thing that  the  patron  felt  it  inconvenient  for  his  obliged 
friend  and  servant  to  know,  became  by  that  very  fact  an 
object  of  peculiar  curiosity.  The  obliged  friend  and 
servant  secretly  doted  on  his  patron's  inconvenience,  pro- 
vided that  he  himself  did  not  share  it;  and  conjecture 
naturally  became  active. 

Johnson's  legal  imagination,  being  very  differently  fur- 
nished from  Christian's,  was  at  no  loss  to  conceive  condi- 
tions under  which  there  might  arise  a  new  claim  on  the 
Transome  estates.  He  had  before  him  the  whole  history 
of  the  settlement  of  those  estates  made  a  hundred  years 
ago  by^John  Justus  Transome,  entailing  them,  whilst  in 
his  possession,  on  his  son  Thomas  and  his  heirs-male,  with 
remainder  to  the  Bycliffes  in  fee.  He  knew  that  Thomas, 
son  of  John  Justus,  proving  a  prodigal,  had,  without  the 
knowledge  of  his  father,  the  tenant  in  possession,  sold  his 
own  and  his  descendants'  rights  to  a  law3^er-cousin  named 
Durfey;  tliat,  therefore,  the  title  of  the  Durfey-Transomes, 
in  spite  of  that  old  Durfey's  tricks  to  show  the  contrary, 
depended  solely  on  the  purchase  of  the  "base  fee"  thus 
created  by  Thomas  Transome;  and  that  the  B^^cliffes  were 
the  "remainder-men"  who  might  .fairly  oust  the  Durfey- 
Transomes  if  ever  the  issue  of  the  prodigal  Thomas  went 
clean  out  of  existence,  and  ceased  to  represent  a  right 
which  he  had  bargained  away  from  them. 

Johnson,  as  Jermyn's  subordinate,  had  been  closely 
cognizant  of  the  details,  concerning  the  suit  instituted  by 
successive  Bycliffes,  of  whom  Maurice  Christian  Bycliffe 
was  the  last,  on  the  plea  that  the  extinction  of  Thomas 
Transome's  line  had  actually  come  to  pass — a  weary  suit, 
which  had  eaten  into  the  fortunes  of  two  families,  and  had 
only  made  the  cankerworms  fat.  The  suit  had  closed  with 
the  deatli  of  Maurice  Christian  Bycliffe  in  prison;  but 
before  his  death,  Jermyn's  exertions  to  get  evidence  that 
there  was  still  issue  of  Thomas  Transome's  line  surviving, 
as  a  security  of  the  Durfey  title,  had  issued  in  the  discovery 


THE    RADICAL.  263 

of  a  Thomas  Transome  at  Littleshaw,  in  Stonyshire^,  who 
was  the  representative  of  the  pawned  inheritance.  The 
death  of  Maurice  had  made  this  discover}^  useless — had 
made  it  seem  the  wiser  part  to  say  nothing  about  it;  and 
the  fact  had  remained  a  secret  known  only  to  Jermyn  and 
Johnson.  No  other  Bycliffe  was  known  or  believed  to 
exist,  and  the  Durfey-Transomes  might  be  considered  safe, 
unless — yes,  there  was  an  "unless"  which  Johnson  could 
conceive:  an  heir  or  heiress  of  the  Bycliffes — if  such  a 
personage  turned  out  to  be  in  existence — might  sometime 
raise  a  new  and  valid  claim  when  once  informed  that 
wretched  old  Tommy  Trounsem  the  bill-sticker,  tottering 
drunkenly  on  the  edge  of  the  grave,  was  the  last  issue 
remaining  above-ground  from  that  dissolute  Thomas  Avho 
played  his  Esau  part  a  century  before.  While  the  poor 
old  bill-sticker  breathed,  the  Durfey-Transomes  could 
legally  keep  their  possession  in  spite  of  a  possible  Bycliffe 
proved  real;  but  not  when  the  parsih  had  buried  the  bill- 
sticker. 

Still,  it  is  one  thing  to  conceive  conditions,  and  another 
to  see  any  chance  of  proving  their  existence.  Johnson  at 
present  had  no  glimpse  of  such  a  chance;  and  even  if  he 
ever  gained  the  glimpse,  he  was  not  sure  that  he  should 
ever  make  any  use  of  it.  His  inquiries  of  Medwin,  in 
obedience  to  Jerniyn's  letter,  had  extracted  only  a  negative 
as'  to  any  information  possessed  by  the  lawyers  of  Bycliffe 
concerning  a  marriage,  or  expectation  of  offspring  on  his 
part.  But  Johnson  felt  not  the  less  stung  by  curiosity  to 
know  what  Jermyn  had  found  out:  that  he  had  found 
something  in  relation  to  a  possible  Bycliffe,  Johnson  felt 
pretty  sure.  And  he  thought  with  satisfaction  that  Jer- 
myn could  not  hinder  him  from  knowing  what  he  already 
knew  about  Thomas  Transome's  issue.  Many  things  might 
occur  to  alter  his  policy  and  give  a  new  value  to  facts. 
Was  it  certain  tliat  Jermyn  would  always  be  fortunate? 

When  greed  and  unscrupulousness  exhibit  themselves 
on  a  grand  historical  scale,  and  there  is  question  of  ])eace 
or  war  or  amicable  partition,  it  often  occurs  that  gentlemen 
of  high  diplomatic  talents  have  their  minds  bent  on  the 
same  object  from  different  points  of  view.  Each,  perhaps, 
is  tliinking  of  a  certain  duchy  or  province,  with  a  view  to 
arranging  the  ownership  in  such  a  way  as  shall  best  serve 
the  purposes  of  the  gentleman  with  high  diplomatic  tal- 
ents in  whom  each  is  more  especially  interested.  But 
these  select  minds  in  high  office  can  never  miss  tiieir  aims 


264  FELIX    HOLT, 

from  ignorance  of  each  other's  existence  or  whereabouts. 
Their  high  titles  may  be  learned  even  by  common  people 
from  every  pocket  almanac. 

But  with  meaner  diplomats,  who  might  be  mutually 
useful,  such  ignorance  is  often  obstructive.  Mr.  John 
Johnson  and  Mr.  Christian,  otherwise  Henry  Scaddon, 
might  have  had  a  concentration  of  purpose  and  an  inge- 
nuity of  device  fitting  them  to  make  a  figure  in  the  parcel- 
ing of  Europe,  and  yet  they  might  never  have  met, 
simply  because  Johnson  knew  nothing  of  Christian,  and 
because  Christian  did  not  know  where  to  find  Johnson. 


CHAPTER  XXX. 

His  nature  is  too  noble  for  the  world : 

He  would  not  flatter  Neptune  for  his  trident, 

Or  Jove  for  his  power  to  thunder.    His  heart's  his  mouth': 

What  his  breast  forges,  that  his  tongue  must  vent ; 

And,  being-  angry,  doth  forget  that  ever 

He  heard  the  name  of  'death.— Coriotoniis. 

Christian  and  Johnson  did  meet,  however,  by  means 
that  were  quite  incalculable.  The  incident  which  brought 
them  into  communication  was  due  to  Felix  Holt,  who  or 
all  men  in  the  world  had  the  least  affinity  either  for  the 
industrious  or  the  idle  parasite. 

Mr.  Lyon  had  urged  Felix  to  go  to  Duffield  on  the  fir- 
teenth  of  December,  to  witness  the  nomination  of  the  can- 
didates for  North  Loamshire.  The  minister  wished  to  heiir 
what  took  place;  and  the  pleasure  of  gratifying  him  helped 
to  outweigh  some  opposing  reasons. 

"I  shall  get  into  a  rage  at  something  or  other,''  Felix 
had  said.  "  I've  told  you  one  of  my  weak  points.  Where 
I  have  any  particular  business,  I  must  incur  the  risks  my 
nature  brings.  But  I've  no  particular  business  at  Duffield. 
However,  I'll  make  a  holiday  and  go.  By  dint  of  seehig 
folly,  I  shall  get  lessons  in  patience." 

The  weak  point  to  which  Felix  referred  was  his  liability 
to  be  carried  completely  out  of  his  own  mastery  by  indig- 
nant anger.  His  strong  health,  his  renunciation  of  selfish 
claims,  his  habitual  preoccupation  with  large  thoughts  and 
with  purposes  independent  of  every-day  casualties,  secured 
him  a  fine  and  even  temper,  free  from  moodiness  -or  irri- 
tability.    He  was  full  of  long-suffering  toward  his  unwise 


THE    KADIGAL.  265 

mother,  who  "  pressed  him  daily  with  her  words  and  urged 
him,  so  that  his  soul  was  vexed";  he  had  choseu  to  fill  his 
days  in  a  way  that  required  the  utmost  exertion  of  patience, 
that  required  those  little  rill-like  outflowings  of  goodness 
which  in  minds  of  great  energy  must  be  fed  from  deep 
sources  of  thought  and  passionate  devotedness.  In  this 
way  his  energies  served  to  make  him  gentle;  and  now,  in 
this  twenty-sixth  year  of  his  life,  the}^  had  ceased  to  make 
him  angry,  except  in  the  presence  of  something  that  roused 
his  deep  indignation.  When  once  exasperated,  the  pas- 
sionateness  of  his  nature  threw  off  the  yoke  of  a  long- 
trained  consciousness  in  which  thought  and  emotion  had 
been  more  and  more  completely  mingled,  and  concentrated 
itself  in  a  rage  as  ungovernable  as  that  of  boyhood.  He 
was  thoroughly  aware  of  the  liability,  and  knew  that  in 
such  circumstances  he  could  not  answer  for  himself. 
Sensitive  people  with  feeble  frames  have  often  the  same 
sort  of  fury  within  them;  but  they  are  themselves  shat- 
tered, and  shatter  nothing.  Felix  had  a  terrible  arm:  he 
knew  that  he  was  dangerous;  and  he  avoided  the  condi- 
tions that  might  cause  him  exasjoeration,  as  he  would  have 
avoided  intoxicating  drinks  if  he  had  been  in  danger  of 
intemperance. 

The  nomination-day  was  a  great  epoch  of  successful 
trickery,  or,  to  speak  in  a  more  parliamentary  manner,  of 
war-stratagem,  on  the  jiart  of  skillful  agents.  And  Mr. 
Johnson  had  his  share  of  inward  chuckling  and  self- 
approval,  as  one  who  might  justly  exj)ect  increasing 
renown,  and  be  some  day  in  as  general  request  as  the 
great  Putty  himself.  To  have  the  pleasure  and  the  praise 
of  electioneering  ingenuity,  and  also  to  get  paid  for  it, 
without  too  much  anxiety  whether  the  ingenuity  will 
achieve  its  ultimate  end,  perhaps  gives  to  some  select 
persons  a  sort  of  satisfaction  in  their  suj)eriority  to  their 
more  agitated  fellow-men  that  is  worthy  to  be  classed  with 
those  generous  enjoyments  of  having  the  truth  chiefly  to 
yourself,  and  of  seeing  others  in  danger  of  drowning 
wliile  you  are  high  and  dry,  which  seem  to  have  been 
regarded  as  unmixed  privileges  by  Lucretius  and  Lord 
Bacon. 

One  of  Mr.  Johnson's  great  successes  was  this.  Spratt, 
the  hated  manager  of  the  Sproxton  Colliery,  in  careless 
confidence  that  the  colliers  and  other  laborers  under  him 
would  follow  his  orders,  had  provided  carts  to  carry  some 
loads   of   voteless    enthusiasm   to    Duffield   on  behalf  of 


266  FELIX   HOLT, 

Garstin;  enthusiasm  which,  being  already  paid  for  by  the 
recognized  benefit  of  Garstin's  existence  as  a  capitalist 
with  a  share  in  the  Sproxton  mines,  was  not  to  cost  much 
in  the  form  of  treating.  A  capitalist  was  held  worthy 
of  pious  honor  as  the  cause  why  working  men  existed. 
But  Mr.  Spratt  did  not  sufficiently  consider  that  a  cause 
which  has  to  be  proved  by  argument  or  testimony  is  not 
an  object  of  passionate  devotion  to  colliers:  a  visible  cause 
of  beer  acts  on  them  much  more  strongly.  And  even  if 
there  had  been  any  love  of  the  far-oif  Garstin,  hatred  of 
the  too  immediate  Spratt  would  have  been  the  stronger 
motive.  Hence  Johnson's  calculations,  made  long  ago 
with  Chubb,  the  remarkable  publican,  had  been  well 
founded,  and  there  had  been  diligent  care  to  supply  treat- 
ing at  Duffield  in  the  name  of  Transome.  After  the 
election  was  over  it  Avas  not  improbable  that  there  would 
be  much  friendly  joking  between  Putty  and  Johnson  as  to 
the  success  of  this  trick  against  Putty's  employer,  and 
Johnson  would  be  conscious  of  rising  in  the  opinion  of  his 
celebrated  senior. 

For  the  show  of  hands  and  the  cheering,  the  hustling 
and  the  pelting,  the  roaring  and  the  hissing,  the  hard  hits 
with  small  missiles  and  the  soft  hits  with  small  jokes,  were 
strong  enough  on  the  side  of  Transome  to  balance  the 
similar  "demonstrations"  for  Garstin,  even  with  the 
Debarry  interest  in  his  favor.  And  the  inconvenient 
presence  of  Spratt  was  early  got  rid  of  by  a  dexterously- 
managed  accident,  which  sent  him  bruised  and  limping 
from  the  scene  of  action.  Mr.  Clmbb  had  never  before 
felt  so  thoroughly  that  the  occasion  was  up  to  a  level  with 
his  talents,  while  tlie  clear  daylight  in  which  his  virtue 
would  appear  when  at  the  election  he  voted,  as  his  duty  to 
himself  bound  him,  for  Garstin  only,  gave  him  thorough 
repose  of  conscience. 

Felix  Holt  was  the  only  person  looking  on  at  the  sense- 
less exhibitions  of  this  nomination-day,  who  knew  from 
the  beginning  the  history  of  the  trick  with  the  Sproxton 
men.  He  had  been  aware  all  along  that  the  treating  at 
Chubb's  had  been  continued,  and  tliat  so  far  Harold  Tran- 
^ome's  promise  had  produced  no  good  fruits;  and  what  he 
was  observing  to-day,  as  he  watched  the  uproarious  crowd, 
convinced  him  that  the  whole  scheme  would  be  carried 
out  just  as  if  he  had  never  spoken  about  it.  He  could  be 
t'air  enough  to  Transome  to  allow  that  he  might  have 
wished,  and  yet  have  been   unable,  with   his  notions  of 


THE    RADICAL.  267 

success,  to  keep  his  promise;  and  his  bitterness  toward 
the  candidate  only  took  tlie  form  of  contemptuous  pity; 
for  Felix  was  not  sparing  in  his  contempt  for  men  who 
put  their  inward  honor  in  pawn  by  seeking  the  prizes  of 
the  world.  His  scorn  fell  too  readily  on  the  fortunate. 
But  when  he  saw  Johnson  passing  to  and  fro,  and  speak- 
ing to  Jermyn  on  the  hustings,  he  felt  himself  getting 
angry,  and  jumped  off  the  wheel  of  the  stationary  cart  on 
which  he  was  mounted,  that  he  might  no  longer  be  in 
sight  of  this  man,  whose  vitiating  cant  had  made  his  blood 
hot  and  his  fingers  tingle  on  the  first  day  of  encountering 
him  at  Sproxton.  It  was  a  little  too  exasperating  to  look 
at  this  pink-faced  rotund  specimen  of  prosperity,  to  wit- 
ness the  power  for  evil  that  lay  in  his  vulgar  cant,  backed 
by  another  man's  money,  and  to  know  that  such  stupid 
iniquity  flourished  the  flags  of  Reform,  and  Liberalism, 
and  justice  to  the  needy.  While  the  roaring  and  the  scuf- 
fling were  still  going  on,  Felix,  with  his  thick  stick  in  his 
hand,  made  his  way  through  the  crowd,  and  walked  on 
through  the  Duffield  streets,  till  he  came  out  on  a  grassy 
suburb,  where  the  houses  surrounded  a  small  common. 
Here  he  walked  about  in  the  breezy  air,  and  ate  his  bread 
and  apples,  telling  himself  that  this  angry  haste  of  his 
about  evils  that  could  only  be  remedied  slowly,  could  be 
nothing  else  than  obstructive,  and  might  some  day — he 
saw  it  so  clearly  that  the  thought  seemed  like  a  presenti- 
ment— be  obstructive  of  his  own  work. 

"Not  to  Avaste  energy,  to  apply  force  where  it  would 
tell,  to  do  small  work  close  at  hand,  not  w^aiting  for  specu- 
lative chances  of  heroism,  but  preparing  for  them" — these 
v/ere  the  rales  he  had  been  constantly  urging  on  himself. 
But  what  could  be  a  greater  waste  than  to  beat  a  scoundrel 
who  had  law  and  opodeldoc  at  command?  After  this 
meditation,  Felix  felt  cool  and  wise  enough  to  return  into 
the  town,  not,*  however,  intending  to  deny  himself  the 
satisfaction  of  a  few  pungent  words  wherever  there  was 
place  for  them.  Blows  are  sarcasms  turned  stupid:  wit  is 
a  form  of  force  that  leaves  the  limbs  at  rest. 

Anything  that  could  be  called  a  crowd  was  no  longer 
to  be  seen,  The  show  of  hands  having  been  pronounced 
to  be  in  favor  of  Debarry  and  Transome,  and  a  poll 
having  been  demanded  for  Garstin,  the  business  of  the 
day  might  be  considered  at  an  end.  But  in  the  street 
where  the  hustings  were  erected,  and  where  the  great 
hotels  stood,  there  were  many  groups,  as  well  as  strollers 


268  FELIX   HOLT, 

and  steady  walkers  to  and  fro.  Men  in  superior  great- 
coats and  well-brushed  liats  were  awaiting  with  more  or 
less  impatience  an  important  dinner,  either  at  the  Crown, 
which  was  Debarry's  house,  or  at  the  Three  Cranes,  which 
was  Garstin's,  or  at  the  Fox  and  Hounds,  which  was  Tran- 
some's.  Knots  of  sober  retailers,  who  had  already  dined, 
were  to  be  seen  at  some  shop-doors;  men  in  very  shabby 
coats  and  miscellaneous  head-coverings,  inhabitants  of 
DufHeld  and  not  county  voters,  were  lounging  about  in 
dull  silence,  or  listening,  some  to  a  grimy  man  in  a  flannel 
shirt,  hatless  and  with  turbid  red  hair,  who  was  insisting 
on  political  points  with  much  more  ease  than  had  seemed 
to  belong  to  the  gentlemen  speakers  on  the  hustings,  and 
others  to  a  Scotch  vendor  of  articles  useful  to  sell,  whose 
unfamiliar  accent  seemed  to  have  a  guarantee  of  truth  in 
it  wanting  as  an  association  with  everyday  English.  Some 
rough-looking  pipe-smokers,  or  distinguished  cigar-smok- 
ers, chose  to  walk  up  and  down  in  isolation  and  silence. 
But  the  majority  of  those  who  had  shown  a  burning  inter- 
est in  the  nomination  had  disappeared,  and  cockades  no 
longer  studded  a  close-pressed  crowd,  like,  and  also  very 
unlike,  meadow-flowers  among  the  grass.  The  street  pave- 
ment was  strangely  painted  with  fragments  of  perishable 
missiles  ground  flat  under  heavy  feet:  but  the  workers 
were  resting  from  their  toil,  and  the  buzz  and  tread  and 
the  fitfully  discernible  voices  seemed  like  stillness  to  Felix 
after  the  roar  with  which  the  wide  space  had  been  filled 
when  he  left  it. 

The  group  round  the  speaker  in  the  flannel  shirt  stood 
at  the  corner  of  a  side-street,  and  the  speaker  himself  was 
elevated  by  the  head  and  shoulders  above  his  hearers,  not 
because  he  was  tall,  but  because  he  stood  on  a  projecting 
stone.  At  the  opposite  corner  of  the  turning  was  the 
great  inn  of  the  Fox  and  Hounds,  and  this  was  the  ultra- 
Liberal  quarter  of  the  High  street.  Felix  was  at  once 
attracted  by  this  group;  he  liked  the  look  of  the  speaker, 
Avhose  bare  arms  were  powerfully  muscular,  though  he  had 
the  pallid  complexion  of  a  man  who  lives  chiefly  amidst 
the  heat  of  furnaces.  He  was  leaning  against  the  dark 
stone  building  behind  him  with  folded  arms,  tlie  grimy 
paleness  of  his  shirt  and  skin  standing  out  in  high  relief 
against  the  dark  stone  building  behind  him.  He  lifted  up 
one  forefinger,  and  marked  his  emphasis  with  it  as  he 
spoke.      His  voice  was  high  and  not  strong,   but  Felix 


THE    RADICAL.  269 

recognized   the   fluency  and  the   method   of  a  habitual 
preacher  or  lecturer. 

"It's  the  fallacy  of  all  monopolists,"  he  was  saying. 
"We  know  what  monopolists  are:  men  who  want  to  keep 
a  trade  all  to  themselves,  under  the  pretense  that  they'll 
furnish  the  public  with  a  better  article.  We  know  what 
that  comes  to:  in  some  countries  a  jDoor  man  can't  afford 
to  buy  a  spoonful  of  salt,  and  yet  there's  salt  enough  in 
the  world  to  pickle  every  living  thing  in  it.  That's  the 
sort  of  benefit  monopolists  do  to  mankind.  And  these 
are  the  men  who  tell  us  we're  to  let  politics  alone; 
they'll  govern  us  better  without  our  knowing  anything 
about  it.  We  must  mind  our  business;  we  are  ignorant; 
we've  no  time  to  study  great  questions.  But  I  tell  them 
this:  the  greatest  question  in  the  world  is,  how  to  give 
every  man  a  man's  share  in  what  goes  on  in  life " 

"Hear,  hear!"  said  Felix  in  his  sonorous  voice,  which 
seemed  to  give  a  new  impressiveness  to  what  the  speaker 
iiad  said.  Every  one  looked  at  him:  the  well-washed  face 
and  its  educated  expression  along  witli  a  dress  more  care- 
less than  that  of  most  well-to-do  workmen  on  a  holiday, 
made  his  appearance  strangely  arresting. 

"Not  a  pig's  share,'""  the  speaker  went  on,  "not  a 
horse's,  not  the  share  of  a  machine  fed  with  oil  only  to 
make  it  work  and  nothing  else.  It  isn't  a  man's  share  just 
to  mind  your  pin-making,  or  3'our  glass-blowing,  and  hig- 
gle about  your  own  wages,  and  bring  up  your  family  to  be 
ignorant  sons  of  ignorant  fathers,  and  no  better  prospect; 
that's  a  slave's  share;  we  want  a  freeman's  share,  and  that 
is  to  think  and  speak  and  act  about  what  concerns  us  all, 
and  see  whether  these  fine  gentlemen  who  undertake  to 
govern  us  are  doing  the  best  they  can  for  us.  They've  got 
the  knowledge,  say  they.  Very  well,  we've  got  the  wants. 
There's  many  a  one  would  be  idle  if  hunger  didn't  pinch 
him;  but  the  stomach  sets  us  to  work.  There's  a  fable 
told  where  the  nobles  are  the  belly  and  the  people  the 
members.  But  I  make  another  sort  of  fable.  I  say,  we 
are  the  belly  that  feels  the  pinches,  and  we'll  set  these 
aristocrats,  these  great  people  who  call  themselves  our 
brains,  to  work  at  some  way  of  satisfying  us  a  bit  better. 
The  aristocrats  are  pretty  sure  to  try  and  govern  for  their 
own  benefit;  but  how  are  we  to  be  sure  they'll  try  and 
govern  for  ours?  They  must  be  looked  after,  I  think,  like 
other  Avorkmen.  We  must  have  what  we  call  inspectors, 
to  see  whether  the  work's  well  done  for  us.     We  want  to 


270  FELIX   HOLT, 

send  our  inspectors  to  Parliament.  Well,  tliey  say — you've 
got  the  Eeform  Bill;  what  more  can  you  want?  Send 
your  inspectors.  But  I  say,  the  Eeform  Bill  is  a  trick — 
it's  nothing  but  swearing-in  special  constables  to  keep  the 
aristocrats  safe  in  their  monopoly;  it's  bribing  some  of  the 
people  with  votes  to  make  them  hold  their  tongues  about 
giving  votes  to  the  rest.  I  say,  if  a  man  doesn't  beg  oi- 
steal,  but  works  for  his  bread,  the  poorer  and  the  more 
miserable  he  js,  the  more  he'd  need  have  a  vote  to  send  an 
inspector  to  Parliament — else  the  man  who  is  worst  off  is 
likely  to  be  forgotten;  and  I  say,  he's  the  man  who  ought 
to  be  first  remembered.  Else  what  does  their  religion 
mean?  Why  do  they  build  churches  and  endow  them  that 
that  their  sons  may  get  paid  well  for  preaching  a  Savior, 
and  making  themselves  as  little  like  Him  as  can  be?  If  I 
want  to  believe  in  Jesus  Christ,  I  must  shut  my  eyes  for 
fear  I  should  see  a  parson.  And  what's  a  bishop?  A 
bishop's  a  parson  dressed  up,  who  sits  in  the  House  of 
Lords  to  help  and  throw  out  Eeform  Bills.  And  because 
it's  hard  to  get  anything  in  the  shape  of  a  man  to 
dress  himself  up  like  that,  and  do  such  work,  they  have 
to  give  him  a  palace  for  it,  and  plenty  of  thousands 
a-year.  And  then  they  cry  out  — '  The  Church  is  in 
danger,' — 'the  poor  man's  Church.'  And  why  is  it  the 
poor  man's  Church?  Because  he  can  have  a  seat  for 
nothing.  I  think  it  is  for  nothing;  for  it  would  be  hard 
to  tell  what  he  gets  by  it.  If  the  poor  man  had  a  vote 
in  the  matter,  I  think  he'd  choose  a  different  sort  of 
Church  to  what  that  is.  But  do  you  think  the  aristo- 
crats will  ever  alter  it,  if  the  belly  doesn't  pinch  them? 
Not  they.  It's  part  of  their  monopoly.  They'll  supply  us 
with  our  religion  like  everything  else,  and  get  a  profit  on 
it.  They'll  give  us  plenty  of  heaven.  We  may  have  land 
there.  That's  the  sort  of  religion  they  like — a  religion 
that  gives  us  working  men  heaven,  and  nothing  else.  But 
we'll  offer  to  change  with  them.  We'll  give  them  back 
some  of  their  heaven,  and  take  it  out  in  something  for  us 
and  our  children  in  this  world.  They  don't  seem  to  care 
so  much  about  heaven  themselves  till  they  feel  tlie  gout 
very  bad;  but  you  won't  get  them  to  give  up  anything  else, 
if  you  don't  pinch  'em  for  it.  And  to  pinch  them  enough, 
Ave  must  get  the  suffrage,  we  must  get  votes,  that  we  may 
send  the  men  to  Parliament  who  will  do  our  work  for  us; 
and  we  must  have  Parliament  dissolved  every  year,  that  we 
may  change  our  man  if  he  doesn't  do  what  we  want  him  to 


THE    KAUIGAL.  371 

do;  and  we  must  have  the  country  divided  so  that  tiie 
little  kings  of  the  counties  can't  do  as  they  like,  but  must 
be  shaken  up  in  one  bag  with  us.  I  say,  if  we  v/orkiug 
men  are  ever  to  get  a  man's  share,  we  must  have  universal 
suffrage,  and  annual  Parliaments,  and  the  vote  by  ballot, 
and  electoral  districts." 

"No! — something  else  before  all  that,"  said  Felix,  again 
startling  the  audience  into  looking  at  him.  But  the 
speaker  glanced  coldly  at  him  and  went  on. 

"  That's  what  Sir  Francis  Burdett  went  in  for  fifteen 
years  ago;  and  it's  the  right  thing  for  us,  if  it  was  Tomfool 
who  went  in  for  it.  You  must  lay  hold  of  such  handles  as 
you  can.  I  don't  believe  mnch  in  Liberal  aristocrats;  but 
if  there's  any  fine  carved  gold-headed  stick  of  an  aristocrat 
will  make  a  broomstick  of  himself,  I'll  lose  no  time  but 
I'll  sweep  with  him.  And  that's  what  I  think  about 
Transome.  And  if  any  of  you  have  acquaintance  among 
county  voters,  give  'em  a  hint  that  you  wish  'em  to  vote 
for  Transome." 

At  the  last  word,  the  speaker  stepped  down  from  his 
slight  eminence,  and  walked  away  rapidly,  like  a  man 
whose  leisure  was  exhausted,  and  who  must  go  about  liis 
business.  But  he  had  left  an  appetite  in  his  audience  for 
further  oratory,  and  one  of  them  seemed  to  express  a  gen- 
eral sentiment  as  he  turned  immediately  to  Felix,  and 
said,  "'Come,  sir,  what  do  you  say?" 

Felix  did  at  once  what  he  would  very  likely  have  done 
without  being  asked  —  he  stepped  on  to  the  stone,  and 
took  off  his  cap  by  an  instinctive  prompting  that  always 
led  him  to  speak  uncovered.  The  efl'ect  of  his  figure  in 
relief  against  the  stone  background  was  unlike  that  of 
tlie  previous  speaker.  He  was  considerably  taller,  his 
liead  and  neck  were  more  massive,  and  the  expression  of 
his  mouth  and  eyes  was  something  very  different  from 
tlie  mere  acuteness  and  rather  hard-lipped  antagonism  of 
the  trades-union  man.  Felix  Holt's  face  had  the  look 
of  habitual  meditative  abstraction  from  objects  of  mere 
jiersonal  vanity  or  desire,  which  is  the  peculiar  stamp  of 
culture,  and  makes  a  very  roughly-cut  face  worthy  to  be 
called  "the  human  face  divine."  Even  lions  and  dogs 
know  a  distinction  between  men's  glances;  and  doubtless 
those  Duflield  men,  in  the  expectation  with  wliich  they 
looked  up  at  Felix,  were  unconsciously  influenced  by  tlie 
gvandeur  of  liis  full  yet  firm  mouth,  and  the  calm  clearness 
of  his  gray  eyes  which  were  somehow  unlike  what  they 


272  FELIX   HOLT, 

were  accustomed  to  see  along  with  an  old  brown  velveteen 
coat,  and  an  absence  of  chin-propping.  When  he  began  to 
speak,  the  contrast  of  voice  was  still  stronger  than  that  of 
appearance.  The  man  in  the  flannel  shirt  had  not  been 
heard  —  had  probably  not  cared  to  be  heard — beyond  the 
immediate  group  of  listeners.  But  Felix  at  once  drew  the 
attention  of  persons  comparatively  at  a  distance. 

"  In  my  opinion,"  he  said,  almost  the  moment  after  he 
was  addressed,  "that  was  a  true  word  sjioken  by  your 
friend  when  he  said  the  great  question  was  how  to  give 
every  man  a  man^s  share  in  life.  But  I  think  he  expects 
voting  to  do  more  toward  it  than  I  do.  I  want  the  work- 
ing men  to  have  power.  I'm  a  working  man  myself,  and 
I  don't  want  to  be  anything  else.  But  there  are  two  sorts 
of  power.  There's  a  power  to  do  mischief — to  undo  what 
has  been  done  with  great  expense  and  labor,  to  waste  and 
destroy,  to  be  cruel  to  tlie  weak,  to  lie  and  quarrel,  and  to 
talk  poisonous  nonsense.  That's  the  sort  of  power  that 
ignorant  numbers  have.  It  never  made  a  joint  stool  or 
planted  a  potato.  Do  you  think  it's  likely  to  do  much 
toAvard  governing  a  great  country,  and  making  wise  laws, 
and  giving  shelter,  food,  and  clothes  to  millions  of  men? 
Ignorant  power  comes  in  the  end  to  the  same  thing  as 
wicked  power;  it  makes  misery.  It's  another  sort  of 
power  that  I  want  us  working  men  to  have,  and  I  can  see 
plainly  enough  that  our  all  having  votes  will  do  little 
toward  it  at  present.  I  hoi^e  we,  or  the  children  that 
come  after  us,  will  get  plenty  of  political  power  some 
time.  I  tell  everybody  plainly,  I  hope  there  will  be  great 
clianges,  and  that  some  time,  whether  we  live  to  see  it  or 
not,  men  will  have  come  to  be  ashamed  of  things  they're 
proud  of  now.  But  I  should  like  to  convince  you  that 
votes  v/ould  never  give  you  political  power  worth  having 
while  things  are  as  they  are  now,  and  that  if  you  go  the 
right  way  to  work  you  may  get  power  sooner  without 
votes.  Perhaps  all  you  who  hear  me  are  soljer  men,  who 
try  to  learn  as  much  of  the  natiire  of  things  as  you  can, 
and  to  be  as  little  like  fools  as  possible.  A  fool  or  idiot  is 
one  who  expects  things  to  happen  that  never  can  happen; 
he  Incurs  milk  into  a  can  without  a  bottom,  and  expects 
the  milk  to  stay  there.  The  more  of  such  vain  expecta- 
tions a  man  has,  the  more  he  is  of  a  fool  or  idiot.  And 
if  any  Avorking  man  expects  a  vote  to  do  for  liim  what  it 
never  can  do,  he's  foolish  to  that  amount,  if  no  more.  I 
think  that's  clear  enough,  eh?" 


THE    EADICAL.  273 

"Hear,  hear/'  said  several  voices,  but  they  were  not 
those  of  the  original  group;  they  belonged  to  some  stroll- 
ers who  had  been  attracted  by  Felix  Holt's  vibrating  voice, 
and  were  Tories  from  the  Crown.  Among  them  was 
Christian,  who  was  smoking  a  cigar  with  a  pleasure  he 
always  felt  in  being  among  people  who  did  not  know  him, 
and  doubtless  took  him  to  be  something  higher  than  he 
really  was.  Hearers  from  the  Fox  and  Hounds  also  were 
slowly  adding  themselves  to  the  nucleus.  Felix,  accessible 
to  the  pleasure  of  being  listened  to,  went  on  with  more 
and  more  animation: 

"  The  way  to  get  rid  of  folly  is  to  get  rid  of  vain  expec- 
tations, and  of  thoughts  that  don't  agree  with  the  nature 
of  things.  The  men  who  have  had  true  thoughts  about 
water,  and  what  it  will  do  when  it  is  turned  into  steam 
and  under  all  sorts  of  circumstances,  have  made  themselves 
a  great  power  in  the  world:  they  are  turning  the  wheels  of 
engines  that  will  help  to  change  most  things.  But  no 
engines  would  have  done,  if  there  had  been  false  notions 
about  the  way  water  would  act.  Now,  all  the  schemes 
about  voting,  and  districts,  and  annual  Parliaments,  and 
the  rest,  are  engines,  and  the  water  or  steam — the  force 
that  is  to  work  them — must  come  out  of  human  nature — 
out  of  men's  passions,  feelings,  desires.  Whether  the 
engines  will  do  good  work  or  bad  depends  on  these  feel- 
ings ;  and  if  we  have  false  expectations  about  men's 
characters,  we  are  very  much  like  the  idiot  who  thinks 
he'll  carry  milk  in  a  can  without  a  bottom.  In  my 
opinion,  the  notions  about  what  mere  voting  will  do  are 
very  much  of  that  sort." 

"That's  very  fine,"  said  a  man  in  dirty  fustian,  with  a 
scornful  laugh.  "  But  how  are  we  to  get  the  power  with- 
out votes?" 

"Ill  tell  you  what's  the  greatest  power  under  heaven," 
said  Felix,  "and  that  is  public  opinion — the  ruling  belief 
in  society  about  what  is  right  and  what  is  wrong,  what  is 
honorable  and  what  is  shameful.  That's  the  steam  that  is 
to  work  the  engines.  How  can  political  freedom  make  us 
better,  any  more  tlian  a  religion  we  don't  believe  in,  if 
people  laugh  and  wink  when  tliey  see  men  abuse  and  defile 
it?  And  while  public  opinion  is  what  it  is — while  men 
ha,ve  no  better  beliefs  about  public  duty — while  corruption 
is  not  felt  to  be  a  damning  disgrace — while  men  are  not 
ashamed  in  Parliament  and  out  of  it  to  make  public  ques- 
tions which  concern  the  welfare  of  millions  a  mere  sci*eeu 
18 


274  FELIX    HOLT, 

for  their  own  petty  private  ends, — I  say,  no  fresh  scheme 
of  voting  will  mnch  mend  our  condition.  For,  take  us 
working  men  of  all  sorts.  Suppose  out  of  every  hundred 
who  had  a  vote  there  were  thirty  who  had  some  soberness, 
some  sense  to  choose  with,  some  good  feeling  to  make 
them  wish  the  right  tiling  for  all.  And  suppose  there 
were  seventy  out  of  the  hundred  who  were,  half  of  them, 
not  sober,  who  had  no  sense  to  choose  one  thing  in  j^olitics 
more  than  another,  and  who  had  so  little  good  feeling  in 
them  that  tliey  wasted  on  their  owu  drinking  the  money 
that  should  have  helped  to  feed  and  clothe  their  wives  and 
children;  and  another  half  of  tliem  who,  if  they  didn't 
drink,  were  too  ignorant  or  mean  or  stupid  to  see  any 
good  for  themselves  better  than  pocketing  a  five-shilling 
piece  when  it  was  ofPered  them.  Where  would  be  the 
political  power  of  the  thirty  sober  men?  The  power 
would  lie  with  the  seventy  drunken  and  stuj^id  votes;  and 
I'll  tell  you  what  sort  of  men  would  get  the  power — what 
sort  of  men  would  end  by  returning  whom  they  pleased  to 
Parliament." 

Felix  had  seen  every  face  around  him,  aud  had  particu- 
larly noticed  a  recent  addition  to  his  audience;  but  now  he 
looked  before  him,  without  appearing  to  fix  his  glance  on 
any  one.  In  spite  of  his  cooling  meditations  an  hour  ago, 
his  pulse  was  getting  quickened  by  indignation,  and  the 
desire  to  crush  what  he  hated  was  likely  to  vent  itself  in 
articulation.     His  tone  became  more  biting. 

"■'  They  would  be  men  who  would  undertake  to  do  the. 
business  for  a  candidate,  and  return  him:  men  Avho  have 
no  real  opinions,  but  who  pilfer  the  words  of  every  opinion^ 
and  turn  them  into  a  cant  which  will  serve  their  purpose 
at  the  moment;  men  who  look  out  for  dirty  work  to  makb 
their  fortunes  by,  because  dirty  work  wants  little  tale, 
and  no  conscience;  men  who  know  all  the  ins  and  outs  ol 
bribery,  because  there  is  not  a  cranny  in  their  ov/n  souls 
Avhere  a  bribe  can't  enter.  Such  men  as  these  will  be  the 
masters  wherever  there's  a  majority  of  voters  who  care  more 
for  money,  more  for  drink,  more  for  some  mean  little  end 
which  is  their  own  and  nobody  else's,  than  for  anything 
that  has  ever  been  called  Eight  in  the  world.  For  suppose 
there's  a  poor  voter  named  Jack,  who  has  seven  children, 
and  twelve  or  fifteen  shillings  a-wcek  wages,  perhaps  less. 
Jack  can't  read' — I  don't  say  whose  fault  that  is — he  never 
had  the  chance  to  learn;  he  knows  so  little  that  he  perhaps 
thinks  God  made  the  poor-laws,  and  if  anybody  said  the 


THE   RADICAL.  275 

pattern  of  the  workhouse  was  laid  down  in  the  Testament, 
he  wouldn't  be  able  to  contradict  them.  What  is  poor 
Jack  likely  to  do  when  he  sees  a  smart  stranger  coming  to 
him,  who  happens  to  be  just  one  of  those  men  that  I  say 
will  be  the  masters  till  public  opinion  gets  too  hot  for  them? 
He's  a  middle-sized  man,  we'll  say;  stout,  with  coat  upon 
coat  of  fine  broadcloth,  open  enough  to  show  a  fine  gold 
chain:  none  of  your  dark,  scowling  men,  but  one  with  an 
innocent  pink-and-white  skin  and  very  smooth  light  hair — 
a  most  respectable  man,  who  calls  himself  by  a  good,  sound, 
well-known  English  name — as  Green,  or  Baker,  or  Wilson, 
or  let  us  sav.  Johnson " 

Felix  was  interrupted  by  an  explosion  of  laughter  from 
a  majority  of  the  bystanders.  Some  eyes  had  been  turned 
on  Johnson,  who  stood  on  the  right  hand  of  Felix,  at  the 
very  beginning  of  the  description,  and  these  wore  gradu- 
ally followed  by  others,  till  at  last  every  hearer's  attention 
was  fi.xed  on  him,  and  the  first  burst  of  laughter  from  tlic 
two  or  three  who  knew  the  attorney's  name,  let  every  one 
sufficiently  into  the  secret  to  make  the  amusement  common. 
Johnson,  who  had  kejDt  his  ground  till  his  name  was  men- 
tioned, now  turned  away,  looking  unusually  white  after 
being  unusually  red,  and  feeling  by  an  attorney's  instinct 
for  his  pocket-book,  as  if  he  felt  it  Avas  a  case  for  taking 
down  the  names  of  witnesses. 

All  the  well-dressed  hearers  turned  away  too,  thinking 
they  had  had  the  cream  of  the  speech  in  the  joke  against. 
Johnson,  which,  as  a  thing  worth  telling,  helped  to  recall 
them  to  the  scene  of  dinner. 

''Who  is  this  Johnson?"  said  Christian  to  a  young 
man  who  hati  been  standing  near  him,  and  had  been  one 
of  the  first  to  laugh.  Christian's  curiosity  had  naturally 
been  awakened  by  what  might  prove  a  golden  opportunity. 

"  Oh — a  London  attorney.  He  acts  for  Transome. 
That  tremendous  fellow  at  the  corner  there  is  some  red- 
hot  Radical  demagogue,  and  Johnsoii  has  offended  him,  I 
suppose;  else  he  Avouldn't  have  turned  in  that  way  on  a 
man  of  their  own  party." 

"I  had  heard  tliere  was  a  Johnson  who  was  an  under- 
Btrap])er  of  Jermyn's,"  said  Christian. 

"  Well,  so  this  man  may  have  been  for  what  I  know. 
But  he's  a  London  man  now — a  very  busy  fellow — on  his 
own  legs  in  Bedford  Row.  Ha,  ha  I  It's  capital,  thougli. 
when  these  Liberals  get  a  slap  in  the  face  from  the  work- 
ing men  they're  so  very  fond  of." 


276  FELIX  HOLT, 

Another  turn  along  the  street  enabled  Christian  to  come 
to  a  resolution.  Having  seen  Jermyn  drive  away  an  hour 
before,  he  was  in  no  fear:  he  walked  at  once  to  the  Fox 
and  Hounds  and  asked  to  speak  to  Mr.  Johnson,  A  brief 
interview,  in  which  Christian  ascertained  that  he  had 
before  him  the  Johnson  mentioned  by  the  bill-sticker, 
issued  in  the  appointment  of  a  longer  one  at  a  later  hour; 
and  before  they  left  Duffield  they  had  come  not  exactly  to 
a  mutual  understanding,  but  to  an  exchange  of  informa- 
tion mutually  welcome. 

Christian  had  been  very  cautious  in  the  commencement, 
only  intimating  that  he  knew  something  important  which 
some  chance  hints  had  induced  him  to  think  might  be 
interesting  to  Mr.  Johnson,  but  that  this  entirely 
depended  on  how  far  he  had  a  common  interest  with  Mr. 
Jermyn.  Johnson  replied  that  he  had  much  business  in 
which  that  gentleman  was  not  concerned,  but  that  to  a 
certain  extent  they  had  a  common  interest.  Probably 
then.  Christian  observed,  the  affairs  of  the  Transome 
estate  were  part  of  the  business  in  which  Mr.  Jermyn  and 
Mr.  Johnson  might  be  understood  to  represent  each  other, 
in  which  case  he  need  not  detain  Mr.  Johnson?  At 
this  hint  Johnson  could  not  conceal  that  ho  was  becoming 
eager.  He  had  no  idea  what  Christian's  information  was, 
but  there  were  many  grounds  on  which  Johnson  desired 
to  know  as  much  as  he  could  about  the  Transome  affairs 
independently  of  Jermyn.  By  little  and  little  an  under- 
standing was  arrived  at.  Christian  told  of  his  interview 
Avith  Tommy  Trounsem,  and  stated  that  if  Johnson  could 
show  him  whether  the  knowledge  could  have  any  legal 
value,  he  could  bring  evidence  that  a  legitimate  child  of 
Bycliffe''s  existed:  he  felt  certain  of  his  fact,  and  of  his 
proof.  Johnson  explained,  that  in  this  case  the  death  of 
the  old  bill-sticker  would  give  the  child  the  first  valid 
claim  to  the  Bycliffe  heirship;  that  for  his  own  part  he 
should  be  glad  to  further  a  true  claim,  but  that  caution 
would  have  to  be  observed.  How  did  Christian  know 
that  Jermyn  was  informed  on  this  subject?  Christian, 
more  and  more  convinced  that  Johnson  would  be  glad 
to  counteract  Jermyn,  at  length  became  explicit  about 
Esther,  but  still  withheld  his  own  real  name,  and  the 
nature  of  his  relations  with  Bycliffe.  He  said  he  would 
bring  the  rest  of  his  information  when  Mr.  Johnson  took 
the  case  up  seriously,  and  place  it  in  the  hands  of  Bycliffe's 
old  lawyers — of  course  he  would  do  that?    Johnson  replied 


THE   RADICAL.  277 

that  he  would  certainly  do  that;  but  that  there  were  legal 
niceties  which  Mr.  Christian  was  probably  not  acquainted 
with;  that  Esther's  claim  had  not  yet  accrued,  and  that 
hurry  was  useless. 

The  two  men  parted,  each  in  distrust  of  the  other,  but 
each  well  pleased  to  have  learned  something.  Johnson 
was  not  at  all  sure  how  he  should  act,  but  thought  it  likely 
that  events  would  soon  guide  him.  Christian  was  begin- 
ning to  meditate  a  way  of  securing  his  own  ends  without 
depending  in  the  least  on  Johnson's  procedure.  It  was 
enough  for  him  that  he  was  now  assured  of  Esther's  legal 
claim  on  the  Transonie  estates. 


CHAPTER    XXXI. 

"  In  the  copia  of  the  factious  language  the  word  Tory  was  entertained, 
and  being-  a  vocal  clever-somiding-  word,  readily  pronounced,  it  kept  its 

hold,  and  took  possession  of   the   foul  mouths  of   the   faction. The 

Loyalists  began  to  cheer  up  and  to  take  heart  of  grace,  ard  in  the  working 
of  this  crisis,  according  to  the  common  laws  of  scolding,  they  considered 
which  way  to  make  payment  for  so  much  of  Tory  as  they  had  been  treated' 

with,  to  clear  scores. Immediately  the  train  took,  and  ran  like  wildlire 

and  became  general.  And  so  the  account  of  Tory  was  balanced,  and  soon 
began  to  run  up  a  sharp  score  on  the  other  side."— North's  Examen,  p.  321. 

At  last  the  great  epoch  of  the  election  for  North  Loam- 
shire  had  arrived.  The  roads  approaching  Treby  were 
early  traversed  by  a  larger  number  of  vehicles,  horsemen, 
and  also  foot-passengers  than  were  ever  seen  at  the  annual 
fair,  Treby  was  the  polling-place  for  many  voters  whose 
faces  were  quite  strange  in  the  town;  and  if  there  were 
some  strangers  who  did  not  come  to  poll,  though  they  had 
l)usiness  not  unconnected  with  the  election,  they  were  not 
liable  to  be  regarded  with  suspicion  or  especial  curiosity. 
It  was  understood  that  no  division  of  a  county  had  ever 
been  more  thoroughly  canvassed,  and  that  there  would  be 
a  hard  run  between  Garstin  and  Transonie.  Mr.  John- 
son's headquarters  were  at  Duffield;  but  it  was  a  maxim 
which  he  repeated  after  the  great  Putty,  that  a  capable 
agent  makes  himself  omnipresent;  and  quite  apart  from 
the  express  between  him  and  Jermyn,  Mr.  John  Johnson's 
presence  in  the  universe  had  potent  effects  on  this  Decem- 
ber day  at  Treby  Magna. 

A  slight  drizzling  rain  which  was  observed  by  some 
Tories  who  looked  out  of  their  bedroom  windows  before 
six  o'clock,  made  them  hope  that,  after  all^  the  day  miglit 


278  FELIX    HOLT, 

pass  off  better  tlian  alarmists  had  expected.  The  rain 
was  felt  to  be  somehow  on  the  side  of  quiet  and  Conserva- 
tism; but  soon  the  breaking  of  the  clouds  and  the  mild 
gleams  of  a  December  sun  brought  back  previous  appre- 
hensions. As  there  were  already  precedents  for  riot  at  a 
Eeformed  election,  and  as  the  Trebian  district  had  had  its 
confidence  in  the  natural  course  of  things  somewhat 
shaken  by  a  landed  proprietor  with  an  old  name  offering 
himself  as  a  Eadical  candidate,  the  election  had  been 
looked  forward  to  by  many  with  a  vague  sense  that  it 
would  be  an  occasion  something  like  a  fighting  match, 
when  bad  characters  would  probably  assemble,  and  there 
might  be  struggles  and  alarms  for  respectable  men,  which 
would  make  it  expedient  for  them  to  take  a  little  neat 
brandy  as  a  precaution  beforehand  and  a  restorative  after- 
ward. The  tenants  on  the  Transome  estate  were  com- 
paratively fearless:  jjoor  Mr.  Goft'e,  of  Eabbit's  End, 
considered  that  '"'one  thing  was  as  mauling  as  anotlier," 
and  that  an  election  was  no  worse  than  the  sheep-rot; 
while  ^Ir.  Dibbs,  taking  the  more  cheerful  view  of  a  pros- 
perous man,  reflected  that  if  the  Eadicals  were  dangerous, 
ic  Avas  safer  to  be  on  their  side.  It  was  the  voters  for 
Debarry  and  Garstin  who  considered  that  they  alone  had 
the  right  to  regard  themselves  as  targets  for  evil-minded 
men;  and  Mr.  Crowder,  if  he  could  have  got  his  ideas 
countenanced,  would  have  recommended  a  muster  of 
farm-servants  with  defensive  pitchforks  on  the  side  of 
Church  and  king.  But  the  bolder  men  were  rather  grati- 
fied by  the  prospect  of  being  groaned  at,  so  that  they 
might  face  about  and  groan  in  return. 

Sir.  Crow,  the  high  constable  of  Treby,  inwardly  re- 
hearsed a  brief  address  to  a  riotous  crowd  in  case  it  should 
be  wanted,  having  been  warned  by  the  rector  that  it  was 
a  j)rimary  duty  on  these  occasions  to  keep  a  watch  against 
provocation  as  well  as  violence.  The  rector,  with  a 
brother  magistrate  who  was  on  the  spot,  had  thought 
it  desirable  to  swear  in  some  special  constables,  but  the 
presence  of  loyal  men  not  absolutely  required  for  the 
polling  was  not  looked  at  in  the  light  of  a  provocation. 
The  Benefit  Clubs  from  various  quarters  made  a  show, 
some  with  the  orange-colored  ribbons  and  streamers  of 
the  true  Tory  candidate,  some  with  the  mazarine  of 
the  Whig.  The  orange-colored  bands  played  "  Auld  Lang 
Syne,"  and  a  louder  mazarine  band  came  across  them 
with  "Oh,  whistle  and  I  will  come  to  thee,  mj  lad"  — 


I 


THE   RADICAL.  379 

probably  as  the  tune  tlie  most  symbolical  of  Liberalism 
which  tlieir  repertory  would  furnish.  There  was  not 
a  single  club  bearing  the  Radical  blue:  the  Sproxton 
Club  members  wore  the  mazarine,  and  Mr.  Chubb  wore 
so  much  of  it  that  he  looked  (at  a  sufiicient  distance)  like 
a  very  large  geutianella.  It  was  generally  understood  that 
''these  brave  fellows,"  representing  the  fine  institution  of 
Benefit  Clubs,  holding  aloft  the  motto,  "Let  brotherly  love 
continue,"  were  a  civil  force  calculated  to  encourage  voters 
of  sound  opinions  and  keep  up  their  spirits.  But  a  con- 
siderable number  of  unadorned  heavy  navvies,  colliers 
and  stone-pit  men,  who  used  their  freedom  as  British 
subjects  to  be  present  in  Treby  on  this  great  occasion," 
looked  like  a  possible  uncivil  force  whose  politics  were 
dubious  until  it  was  clearly  seen  for  whom  they  cheered 
and  for  whom  they  groaned. 

Thus  the  way  up  to  the  polling-booths  was  variously 
lined,  and  those  who  walked  it,  to  whatever  side  they 
belonged,  had  the  advantage  of  hearing  from  the  opposite 
side  what  were  the  most  marked  defects  or  excesses  in 
their  personal  appearance;  for  the  Trebians  of  that  day 
held,  without  being  aware  that  they  had  Cicero's  authority 
for  it,  that  the  bodily  blemishes  of  an  opponent  were  a 
legitimate  ground  for  ridicule;  but  if  the  voter  frustrated 
wit  by  being  handsome,  he  was  groaned  at  and  satirized 
according  to  a  formula,  in  which  the  adjective  was  Tory, 
Whig,  or  Kadical,  as  the  case  might  be,  and  the  substan- 
tive a  blank  to  be  filled  up  after  the  taste  of  the  speaker. 

Some  of  the  more  timid  had  chosen  to  go  through  this 
ordeal  as  early  as  i)Ossible  in  the  morning.  One  of  the 
earliest  was  Mr.  Timothy  Rose,  the  gentleman-farmer  from 
Leek  Malton.  He  had  left  home  with  some  foreboding, 
having  swathed  his  more  vital  parts  in  layers  of  flannel, 
and  put  on  two  great-coats  as  a  soft  kind  of  armor.  But 
reflecting  with  some  trepidation  that  there  Mere  no 
resources  for  protecting  his  head,  he  once  more  wavered 
in  his  intention  to  vote;  he  once  more  observed  to  Mrs. 
Rose  that  these  were  hard  times  when  a  man  of  independ- 
ent property  was  expected  to  vote  "willy-nilly'*;  but 
finally  coerced  by  the  sense  that  he  should  be  looked  ill  on 
"in  these  times"  if  he  did  not  stand  by  the  gentlemen 
round  about,  he  set  out  in  his  gig.  taking  with  him  a 
powerful  wagoner,  Avhom  he  ordered  to  keep  him  in  sight 
as  he  went  to  the  i)olling-booth.  It  was  hardly  more  than 
nine  o'clock  when  Mr.  Rose,  having  thus  come  up  to  the 


280  FELIX   HOLT, 

level  of  his  times,  clieered  himself  with  a  little  cherry- 
brandy  at  the  Marquis,  drove  away  in  a  much  more  cour- 
ageous spirit,  and  got  down  at  Mr.  Nolan's,  just  outside 
the  town.  The  retired  Londoner,  he  considered,  was  a 
man  of  experience,  who  would  estimate  properly  the  judi- 
cious course  he  had  taken,  and  could  make  it  known  to 
others.  Mr.  Nolan  was  superintending  the  removal  of 
some  shrubs  in  his  garden. 

"  Well,  Mr.  Nolan,"  said  Eose,  twinkling  a  self-com- 
placent look  over  the  red  prominence  of  his  cheeks,  "  have 
you  been  to  give  your  vote  yet?" 

'•'No;  all  in  good  time.     I  shall  go  presently." 
■     *'Well,  I  wouldn't  lose  an  hour,  I  wouldn't.     I  said  to 
myself,  if  I've  got  to  do  gentlemen  a  favor,  I'll  do  it  at 
once.     You  see,  I've  got  no  landlord,  Nolan — I'm  in  that 
position  o'life  that  I  can  be  independent." 

"  Just  so,  my  dear  sir,"  said  the  wiry -faced  Nolan,  pinch- 
ing his  under-lip  between  his  thumb  and  finger,  and 
giving  one  of  those  wonderful  universal  shrugs,  by  which 
he  seemed  to  be  recalling  all  his  garments  from  a  tendency 
to  disperse  tliemselves.     ''Come  in  and  see  Mrs.  Nolan?" 

"No,  no,  thankye.  Mrs.  Eose  expects  me  back.  But, 
as  I  was  saying,  I'm  a  independent  man,  and  I  consider  it's 
not  my  part  to  show  favor  to  one  more  than  another,  but 
to  make  things  as  even  as  I  can.  If  I'd  been  a  tenant  to 
anybody,  well,  in  course  I  must  have  voted  for  my  laud- 
lord — that  stands  to  sense.  .  But  I  wish  everybody  well; 
and  if  one's  returned  to  Parliament  more  than  another, 
nobody  can  say  it's  my  doing;  for  Avhen  you  can  vote  for 
two,  you  can  make  things  even.  So  I  gave  one  to  Debarry 
and  one  to  Transome;  and  I  wish  Garstin  no  ill,  but  I 
can't  help  the  odd  number,  and  he  hangs  on  to  Debarr}^, 
they  sa)-." 

"God  bless  me,  sir,"  said  Mr.  Nolan,  coughing  down  a 
laugh,  "  don't  you  perceive  that  you  might  as  well  have 
stayed  at  home  and  not  voted  at  all,  unless  you  would 
rather  send  a  Eadical  to  Parliament  than  a  sober  Whig?  " 

"  Well,  I'm  sorry  you  should  have  anything  .to  say 
against  what  I've  done,  Nolan,"  said  Mr.  Eose,  rather 
crestfallen,  though  sustained  by  inward  Avarmth.  "I 
thought  you'd  agree  with  me,  as  you're  a  sensible  man. 
But  the  most  a  independent  man  can  do  is  to  try  and 
please  all;  and  if  he  hasn't  the  luck — here's  wishing  I  may 
do  it  another  time/'  added  Mr.  Eose,  apparently  confound- 


THE   RADICAL.  28l 

ing  a  toast  witli  a  salutation,  for  he  put  out  his  hand  for  a 
passing  shake,  and  then  stepjied  into  his  gig  again. 

At  the  time  that  Mr.  Timothy  Eose  left  the  town,  the 
crowd  in  King  Street  and  in  the  market-place,  where  the 
polling-booths  stood,  was  fluctuating.  Voters  as  yet  were 
scanty,  and  brave  fellows  who  had  come  from  any  distance 
this  morning,  or  who  had  sat  up  late  drinking  the  night 
before,  required  some  reinforcement  of  their  strength  and 
spirits.  Every  public  house  in  Treby,  not  excepting  the 
venerable  and  sombre  Cross-Keys,  was  lively  with  chang- 
ing and  numerous  compan^^  Not,  of  course,  that  there 
was  any  treating:  treating  necessarily  had  stopped,  from 
moral  scruples,  when  once  "  the  wits  were  oii-t  "\  but  there 
was  drinking,  which  did  equally  well  under  any  name. 

Poor  Tommy  Trounsem,  breakfasting  hece  on  Falstaff's 
l^roportion  of  bread,  and  something  which,  for  gentility's 
sake,  I  will  call  sack,  was  more  than  usually  victorious 
over  the  ills  of  life,  and  felt  himself  one  {>f  the  heroes  of 
the  day.  He  had  an  immense  light-blue  cockade  in  his 
hat,  and  an  amount  of  silver  in  a  dirty  litl  le  canvass  bag 
which  astonished  himself.  For  some  reason,  at  first  inscru- 
table to  him,  he  had  been  paid  for  his  bill-sticking  with 
great  liberality  at  Mr.  Jermyn's  office,  in  spite  of  his  hav- 
ing been  the  victim  of  a  trick  by  which  he  had  once  lost 
his  own  bills  and  pasted  up  Debarry's;  but  he  soon  saw 
that  this  was  simjaly  a  recognition  of  his  merit  9,s  "an  old 
family  kept  out  of  its  rights,"  and  also  of  his  peculiar  share 
in  an  occasion  when  the  family  was  to  get  into  Parliament. 
Under  these  circumstances,  it  was  due  from  h'm  that  he 
should  show  himself  prominently  where  business  was  going 
forward,  and  give  additional  value  by  his  presence  to  every 
vote  for  Transome.  With  this  view  he  got  a  half- pint 
bottle  filled  with  his  peculiar  kind  of  ''sack,"  and  has- 
tened back  to  the  market-place,  feeling  good-natured  and 
patronizing  toward  all  political  parties,  and  only  so  ("ar  par- 
tial as  his  family  bound  him  to  be. 

But  a  disposition  to  concentrate  at  that  extremity  of 
King  Street  which  issued  in  the  market-place,  wtis  not 
universal  among  the  increasing  crowd.  Some  of  them 
seemed  attracted  toward  another  nucleus  at  the  other 
extremity  of  King  Street,  near  the  Seven  Stars.  This  was 
Garstin's  chief  house,  where  his  committee  sat,  and  it  was 
also  a  point  which  must  necessarily  be  passed  by  many 
voters  entering  the  town  on  the  eastern  side.  It  seemed 
natural  that  the  mazarine  colors  should  be  visible  here. 


282  FELIX   HOLT, 

and  that  Pack,  tlie  tall  "shepherd"  of  the  Sproxton  men, 
should  he  seen  moving  to  and  fro  where  there  would  he  a 
frequent  opportunity  of  cheering  the  voters  for  a  gentle- 
man who  had  the  chief  share  in  the  Sproxton  mines.  But 
the  side  lanes  and  entries  out  of  King  Street  were  numer- 
ous enough  to  relieve  any  pressure  if  there  was  need  to 
make  way.  The  lanes  had  a  distinguished  reputation. 
Two  of  them  had  odors  of  brewing;  one  had  a  side  entrance 
•  to  Mr.  Tiliot's  wine  and  spirit  vaults;  up  another  Mr.  Mus- 
cat's cheeses  were  frequently  being  unloaded;  and  even 
some  of  the  entries  had  those  cheerful  suggestions  of  plen- 
tiful provision  which  were  among  the  characteristics  of 
Treby. 

Between  ten  and  eleven  the  voters  came  in  more  rapid 
succession,  and  the  whole  scene  became  spirited.  Cheers, 
sarcasms,  and  oaths,  which  seemed  to  have  a  flavor  of  wit 
for  many  hearers,  were  beginning  to  be  reinforced  by  more 
practical  demonstrations,  dubiously  jocose.  There  was  a 
disposition  in  the  crowd  to  close  and  hem  in  the  way  for 
voters,  either  going  or  coming,  until  they  had  paid  some 
kind  of  toll.  It  was  difficult  to  see  who  set  the  example  in 
the  transition  from  words  to  deeds.  Some  thought  it  was 
due  to  Jacob  Cuff,  a  Tory  charity-man,  who  was  a  well- 
known  ornament  of  the  pothouse,  and  gave  his  mind  much 
leisure  for  amusing  devices;  but  questions  of  origination 
in  stirring»  periods  are  notoriously  hard  to  settle.  It  is  by 
no  means  necessary  in  human  things  that  there  should  be 
only  one  beginner.  This,  however,  is  certain — that  Mr. 
Chubb,  who  wished  it  to  be  noticed  that  he  voted  for  Gar- 
stin  solely,  w?s  one  of  the  first  to  get  rather  more  notice 
than  he  wished,  and  that  he  had  his  hat  knocked  off  and 
crushed  in  the  interest  of  Debarry  by  Tories  opposed  to 
coalition.  On  the  other  hand,  some  said  it  was  at  the 
same  time  that  Mr.  Pink,  the  saddler,  being  stopped  on 
his  way  and  made  to  declare  that  he  was  going  to  vote  for 
Debarry,  got  himself  well  chalked  as  to  his  coat,  and 
l)ushed  up  an  entry,  where  he  remained  the  prisoner  of 
terror  combined  with  the  want  of  any  back  outlet,  and 
never  gave  his  vote  that  day. 

The  second  Tory  joke  was  performed  with  much  gusto. 
The  majority  of  the  Transome  tenants  came  in  a  body 
from  the  Ram  Inn,  with  Mr.  Banks,  the  bailiff,  leading 
them.  Poor  Goffe  was  the  last  of  them,  and  his  worn 
melancholy  look  and  forward-leaning  gait  gave  the  jocose 
Cuff  the  notion  that  the  farmer  was  not  what  he  called 


THE  RADICAL.  283 

'compus."  Mr.  Goffe  was  cut  off  from  his  companions 
and  hemmed  in:  asked,  by  voices  with  hot  breath  close  to 
his  ear,  how  many  horses  he  had,  how  many  cows,  how 
many  fat  pigs;  then  jostled  from  one  to  another,  who 
made  trumpets  with  their  hands,  and  deafened  him  by 
telling  him  to  vote  for  Debarry.  In  this  way  the  melan- 
choly Goffe  was  hustled  on  till  he  was  at  the  polling-booth, 
filled  with  confused  alarms,  the  immediate  alarm  beins: 
that  of  having  to  go  back  in  still  worse  fashion  than  he 
had  come.  Arriving  in  this  way  after  the  other  tenants 
had  left,  he  astonished  all  hearers  who  knew  him  for  a 
tenant  of  the  Transomes  by  saying  "Debarry,"  and  was 
jostled  back  trembling  amid  shouts  of  laughter. 

By  stages  of  this  kind  the  fun  grew  faster,  and  was  in 
danger  of  getting  rather  serious.  The  Tories  began  to 
feel  that  their  jokes  were  returned  by  others  of  a  heavier 
sort,  and  that  the  main  strength  of  the  crowd  was  not  on 
the  side  of  sound  opinion,  but  might  come  to  be  on  the 
side  of  sound  cudgeling  and  kicking.  The  navvies  and 
pitmen  in  dishabille  seemed  to  be  multiplying,  and  to  be 
clearly  not  belonging  to  the  party  of  Order.  The  shops 
were  freely  resorted  to  for  various  forms  of  playful  mis- 
siles and  weapons;  and  news  came  to  the  magistrates, 
watching  from  the  large  window  of  the  Marquis,  that  a 
gentleman  coming  in  on  horseback  at  the  other  end  of  the 
street  to  vote  for  Garstin  had  had  his  horse  turned  round 
and  frightened  into  a  headlong  gallop  out  of  it  again. 

Mr.  Crow  and  his  subordinates,  and  all  the  special  con- 
stables, felt  that  it  was  necessary  to  make  some  energetic 
ett'ort,  or  else  everv  voter  would  be  intimidated  and  the 
poll  must  be  adjourned.  The  rector  determined  to  get  on 
horseback  and  go  amidst  the  crowd  with  the  constables; 
and  he  sent  a  message  to  Mr.  Lingon,  who  was  at  the 
Ram,  calling  on  him  to  do  the  same.  "  Sporting  Jack  '' 
was  sure  the  good  fellows  meant  no  harm,  but  he  was 
courageous  enough  to  face  any  bodily  dangers,  and  rode 
out  in  his  brown  leggings  and  colored  bandana,  speaking 
persuasively. 

It  was  nearly  twelve  o'clock  when  this  sally  was  made: 
the  constables  and  magistrates  tried  the  most  pacific  meas- 
ures, and  they  seemed  to  succeed.  There  was  a  rapid 
thinning  of  the  crowd:  the  most  boisterous  disappeared,  or 
seemed  to  do  so  by  becoming  quiet;  missiles  ceased  to  fly, 
and  a  sufficient  way  was  cleared  for  voters  along  King 
Street.     The  magistrates  returned  to  their  quarters,  and 


284  FELIX   HOLT, 

the  constables  took  convenient  posts  of  observation.  Mr. 
Wace,  who  was  one  of  Debarry's  committee,  had  suggested 
to  the  rector  that  it  might  be  wise  to  send  for  the  military 
from  Duffield,  with  orders  that  they  should  station  them- 
selves at  Hathercote,  three  miles  off:  there  was  so  much 
property  in  the  town  that  it  would  be  better  to  make  it 
secure  against  risks.  But  the  rector  felt  that  this  was 
not  the  part  of  a  moderate  and  wise  magistrate,  unless  the 
signs  of  riot  recurred.  He  was  a  brave  man,  and  fond  of 
thinking  that  his  own  authority  sufficed  for  the  mainte- 
nance of  the  general  good  in  Treby. 


CHAPTER  XXXII. 

Go  from  me.    Yet  I  feel  that  I  shall  stand 
Hencefoi'ward  in  thy  shadow.    Nevermore 
Alone  upon  the  threshold  of  my  door 
Of  individual  life,  I  shall  command 
The  uses  of  my  soul,  nor  lift  my  hand 
Serenely  in  the  sunshine  as  before 
Without  the  sense  of  that  which  I  forbore  — 
Thy  touch  upon  the  palm.    The  widest  land 
Doom  takes  to  part  us,  leaves  thy  heart  in  mine 
With  pulses  that  beat  double.    What  I  do 
And  what  I  dream  include  thee,  as  the  wine 
Must  taste  of  its  own  grapes.    And  when  I  sue 
God  for  myself.  He  hears  that  name  of  thine. 
And  sees  within  my  eyes  the  tears  of  two. 

Mrs.  Browntng. 

Felix  Holt,  seated  at  his  work  without  his  pupils,  who 
had  asked  for  a  holiday  with  a  notion  that  the  wooden 
booths  promised  some  sort  of  show,  noticed  about  eleven 
o'clock  that  the  noises  which  reached  him  from  the  main 
street  were  getting  more  and  more  tumultuous.  He  had 
long  seen  bad  auguries  for  this  election,  but,  like  all  people 
who  dread  the  prophetic  wisdom  that  ends  in  desiring  the 
fulfillment  of  its  own  evil  forebodings,  he  had  checked 
himself  with  remembering  that,  though  many  conditions 
were  possible  which  might  bring  on  violence,  there  were 
Just  as  many  which  might  avert  it.  There  would,  per- 
haps, be  no  other  mischief  tlian  what  ho  was  already 
certain  of.  With  these  thoughts  he  had  sat  down  quietly 
to  his  work,  meaning  not  to  vex  his  soul  by  going  to  look 
on  at  things  he  would  fain  have  made  different  if  he 
could.  But  he  was  of  a  fiber  that  vibrated  too  strongly  to 
the  life  around  him  to  shut  himself  away  in  quiet,  even 
from   suffering  and   irremediable  wrong.     As  the  noises 


THE   RADICAL.  285 

grew  louder,  and  Avrought  more  and  more  strongly  on  his 
imagination,,  he  was  obliged  to  lay  down  his  delicate  wheel- 
work.  His  mother  came  from  her  turnip-paring,  in  the 
kitchen,  where  little  Job  was  her  companion,  to  observe 
that  they  must  be  killing  everybody  in  the  High  Street, 
and  that  the  election,  which  had  never  been  before  at 
Treby,  must  have  come  for  a  judgment;  that  there  were 
mercies  where  you  didn't  look  for  them,  and  that  she 
thanked  God  in  His  wisdom  for  making  her  live  up  a  back 
street. 

Felix  snatched  his  cap  and  rushed  out.  But  when  he 
got  to  the  turning  into  the  market-place  the  magistrates 
were  already  on  horseback  there,  the  constables  were 
moving  about,  and  Felix  observed  that  there  was  no  strong 
spirit  of  resistance  to  them.  He  stayed  long  enough  to 
see  the  partial  dispersion  of  the  crowd  and  the  restoration 
of  tolerable  quiet,  and  then  went  back  to  Mrs.  Holt  to  tell 
her  that  there  was  nothing  to  fear  now;  he  was  going  out 
again,  and  she  must  not  be  in  any  anxiety  at  his  absence. 
She  might  set  by  his  dinner  for  him. 

Felix  had  been  thinking  of  Esther  and  her  probable 
alarm  at  the  noises  that  must  have  reached  her  more  dis- 
tinctly than  they  had  reached  him,  for  MaltUouse  Yard 
was  removed  but  a  little  way  from  the  main  street.  Mr. 
Lyon  was  away  from  home,  having  been  called  to  preach 
charity  sermons  and  attend  meetings  in  a  distant  town; 
and  Esther,  with  the  plaintive  Lyddy  for  her  sole  com- 
panion, was  not  cheerfully  circumstanced.  Felix  had  not 
been  to  see  her  yet  since  her  father's  departure,  but  to-day 
he  gave  way  to  new  reasons. 

"Miss  Esther  was  in  the  garret,"  Lyddy  said,  trying  to 
see  what  was  going  on.  But  before  she  was  fetched  she 
came  running  down  the  stairs,  drawn  by  the  knock  at 
the  door,  which  had  shaken  the  small  dwelling. 

"  I  am  so  thankful  to  see  you,"  she  said,  eagerly. 
"Pray  come  in." 

When  she  had  shut  the  parlor  door  behind  them, 
Felix  said,  "  I  suspected  that  you  might  have  been  made 
anxious  by  the  noises.  I  came  to  tell  you  tliat  things 
are  quiet  now.  Though,  indeed,  you  can  hear  that  they 
are." 

"I  was  frightened,"  said  Esther.  "  The  shouting  and 
roaring  of  riide  men  is  so  hideous.  It  is  a  relief  to  me 
that  my  father  is  not  at  home — that  he  is  out  of  the  reach 
of  any  danger  he  might  have  fallen  into  if  he  had  been 


380  FELIX   HOLT, 

here.  But  I  gave  you  credit  for  l^eing  in  the  midst  of  the 
danger,"  she  added,  sniiiing,  with  a  determination  not 
to  show  much  feeling.  "  Sit  down  and  tell  me  what  has 
happened. '' 

They  sat  down  at  the  extremities  of  the  old  black  sofa, 
and  Felix  said — 

"  To  tell  you  the  truth,  I  had  shut  myself  up,  and  tried 
to  be  as  indifferent  to  the  election  as  if  I'd  been  one  of  the 
fishes  in  the  Lapp,  till  the  noises  got  too  strong  for  me. 
But  I  only  saw  the  tail  end  of  the  disturbance.  The  poor 
noisy  sim2:)letons  seemed  to  give  way  before  the  magistrates 
and  the  constables.  I  hope  nobody  has  been  much  hurt. 
The  fear  is  that  they  may  turn  out  again  by-and-by;  their 
giving  way  so  soon  may  not  be  altogether  a  good  sign. 
There's  a  great  number  of  heavy  fellows  in  the  town.  If 
they  go  and  drink  more,  the  last  end  may  be  worse  than 
the  first.     However " 

Felix  broke  off,  as  if  this  talk  were  futile,  clasped  his 
hands  behind  his  head,  and,  leaning  backward,  looked  at 
Esther,  who  was  looking  at  him. 

"May  I  stay  here  a  little  while?"  he  said,  after  a 
moment,  which  seemed  long. 

"  Pray  do,"  said  Esther,  coloring.  To  relieve  herself 
she  took  some  work  and  bowed  her  head  over  her  stitching. 
It  was  in  reality  a  little  heaven  to  her  that  Felix  was  there, 
but  she  saw  beyond  it — saw  that  by-and-by  he  would  be 
gone,  and  that  they  should  be  farther  on  their  way,  not 
toward  meeting,  but  parting.  His  will  w^as  impregnable. 
He  was  a  rock,  and  she  was  no  more  to  him  than  the  white 
clinging  mist-cloud. 

"  I  wish  I  could  be  sure  that  you  see  things  just  as  I 
do,"  he  said  abruptly,  after  a  minute's  silence. 

"I  am  sure  you  see  them  much  more  wisely  than  I  do," 
said  Esther,  almost  bitterly,  without  looking  up. 

"  There  are  some  people  one  must  wish  to  Judge  one 
truly.  Not  to  wish  it  would  be  mere  hardness.  I  know 
you  think  I  am  a  man  Avithout  feeling — at  least,  without 
strong  affections.  You  think  I  love  nothing  but  my  own 
resolutions." 

"Suppose  I  reply  in  the  same  sort  of  strain?"  said 
Esther,  with  a  little  toss  of  the  head. 

"How?" 

'"Why,  that  you  think  me  a  shallow  woman,  incapable 
of  believing  wiiat  is  best  in  you,  setting  down  everything 
that  is  too  high  for  me  as  a  deficiency." 


THE   RADICAL.  287 

''Don't  parry  what  I  say.  Answer  me."  There  was  an 
expression  of  painful  beseeching  in  the  tone  with  which 
Felix  said  this.  Esther  let  her  work  fall  on  her  lap  and 
looked  at  him,  but  she  was  unable  to  speak. 

"I  want  you  to  tell  me — once — that  you  know  it  would 
be  easier  to  nie  to  give  myself  up  to  loving  and  being 
loved,  as  other  men  do,  when  they  can,  than  to " 

This. breaking-olf  in  speech  was  something  quite  new  in 
Felix.  For  the  first  time  he  had  lost  his  self-possession, 
and  turned  his  eyes  away.  He  was  at  variance  with  him- 
self.    He  had  begun  what  he  felt  he  ought  not  to  finish. 

Esther,  like  a  woman  as  she  was — a  woman  waiting  for 
love,  never  able  to  ask  for  it — had-  her  joy  in  these  signs 
of  her  power;  but  they  made  her  generous,  not  chary,  as 
they  might  have  done  if  she  had  had  a  pettier  disposition. 
She  said,  with  deep  yet  timid  earnestness — 

"  What  you  have  chosen  to  do  has  only  convinced  me 
that  your  love  would  be  the  better  worth  having." 

All  the  finest  part  of  Esther's  nature  trembled  in  those 
words.  To  be  right  in  great  memorable  moments  is  per- 
haps the  thing  we  need  most  desire  for  ourselves. 

Felix  as  quick  as  lightning  turned  his  look  upon  her 
again,  and,  leaning  forward,  took  her  sweet  hand  and  held 
it  to  liis  lips  some  moments  before  he  let  it  fall  again  and 
raised  his  head. 

"We  shall  always  be  the  better  for  thinking  of  each 
other,"  he  said,  leaning  his  elbow  on  the  back  of  the  sofa, 
and  supporting  his  head  as  he  looked  at  her  with  calm 
sadness.  "This  thing  can  never  come  to  me  twice  over. 
It  is  my  knighthood.  That  was  always  a  business  of  great 
cost." 

He  smiled  at  her,  but  she  sat  biting  her  inner  lip  and 
pressing  her  hands  together.  She  desired  to  be  worthy  of 
what  she  reverenced  in  Felix,  but  the  inevitable  renuncia- 
tion was  too  difficult.  She  saw  herself  wandering  through 
the  future  Aveak  and  foi'saken.  The  charming  sauciuess 
was  all  gone  from  her  face,  but  the  memory  of  it  made 
this  child-like  dependent  sorrow  all  tlie  more  touching. 

"■Tell  me  what  you  would "  Felix  burst  out,  leaning- 
nearer  to  her;  but  the  next  instant  he  started  up,  went  to 
the  table,  took  his  cap  in  his  hand  and  came  in  front  of 
her. 

"Good-bye,"  he  said,  very  gently,  not  daring  to  put  out 
his  hand.  ]^>ut  Esther  put  u])  hers  instead  of  speaking. 
He  just  pressed  it  and  then  went  away. 


288  FELIX    HOLT, 

She  heard  the  doors  close  behind  him,  and  felt  free 
to  be  miserable.  She  cried  bitterly.  If  she  might  have 
married  Felix  Holt,  she  could  have  been  a  good  woman. 
She  felt  no  trust  that  she  could  ever  be  good  without  him. 

Felix  reproached  himself.  He  would  have  done  better 
not  to  speak  in  that  way.  But  the  prompting  to  which  he 
had  chiefly  listened  had  been  the  desire  to  prove  to  Esther 
that  he  set  a  high  value  on  her  feelings.  He  could  not 
help  seeing  that  he  was  very  important  to  her;-  and  he  was 
too  simple  and  sincere  a  man  to  ape  a  sort  of  humility 
which  would  not  have  made  him  any  the  better  if  he  had 
possessed  it.  Such  pretenses  turn  our  lives  into  sorry 
dramas.  And  Felix  wished  Esther  to  know  that  her  love 
was  dear  to  him  as  the  beloved  dead  are  dear.  He  felt 
that  they  must  not  marry — that  they  would  ruin  each 
other's  lives.  But  he  had  longed  for  her  to  know  fully 
that  his  will  to  be  always  apart  from  her  was  renunciation, 
not  an  easy  preference.  In  this  he  was  thoroughly  gener- 
ous; and  yet,  now  some  subtle,  mysterious  conjuncture  of 
impressions  and  circumstances  had  made  him  speak,  he 
questioned  the  wisdom  of  what  he  had  done.  Express 
confessions  give  definiteness  to  memories  that  might  more 
easily  melt  away  without  them;  and  Felix  felt  for  Esther's 
pain  as  the  strong  soldier,  who  can  march  on  hungering 
without  fear  that  he  shall  faint,  feels  for  the  young- 
brother — the  maiden-cheeked  conscript  whose  load  is  too 
heavy  for  him. 


( 


CHAPTER  XXXIII. 

Mischief,  thou  art  atoot.— Julius  CcBsar^ 

Felix  could  not  go  home  again  immediately  after  quit- 
ting Esther.  He  got  out  of  the  town,  skirted  it  a  little 
while,  looking  across  the  December  stillness  of  the  fields, 
and  then  re-entered  it  by  the  main  road  into  the  market- 
place, thinking  that,  after  all,  it  would  be  better  for  him 
to  look  at  the  busy  doings  of  men  than  to  listen  in  solitude 
to  the  voices  within  him;  and  he  wished  to  know  liow 
things  were  going  on. 

It  was  now  nearly  half-past  one,  and  Felix  perceived 
that  the  street  was  filling  with  more  than  the  previous 
crowd.     By  tlic  time  he  got  in  front  of  the  booths,  he 


THE   RADICAL.  289 

was  himself  so  surrounded  by  men  who  were  being  thrust 
hither  and  thither  that  retreat  would  have  been  impossi- 
ble; and  he  went  where  he  was  obliged  to  go,  although  his 
height  and  strength  were  above  the  average  even  in  a 
crowd  where  there  were  so  many  heavy-armed  workmen 
used  to  the  pick-axe.  Almost  all  shabby-coated  Trebians 
must  have  been  tliere,  but  the  entries  and  back  streets  of 
the  town  did  not  supply  the  mass  of  the  crowd;  and 
besides  the  rural  incomers,  both  of  the  more  decent  and 
the  rougher  sort,  Felix,  as  he  was  pushed  along,  thought 
he  discerned  here  and  there  men  of  that  keener  aspect 
which  is  only  common  in  manufacturing  towns. 

But  at  present  there  was  no  evidence  of  any  distinctly 
mischievous  design.  There  was  only  evidence  that  the 
majority  of  the  crowd  were  excited  with  drink,  and  that 
their  action  could  hardly  be  calculated  on  more  than 
those  of  the  oxen  and  pigs  congregated  amidst  hootings 
and  pushings.  The  confused  deafening  shouts,  the  inci- 
dental fighting,  the  knocking  over,  pulling  and  scuffling, 
seemed  to  increase  every  moment.  Such  of  the  constables 
as  were  mixed  with  the  crowd  were  quite  helpless;  and  if 
an  official  staff  was  seen  above  the  heads,  it  moved  about 
fitfully,  showing  as  little  sign  of  a  guiding  hand  as  the 
summit  of  a  buoy  on  the  waves.  Doubtless  many  hurts 
and  bruises  had  been  received,  but  no  one  could  know  the 
amount  of  injuries  that  were  widely  scattered. 

It  was  clear  that  no  more  voting  could  be  done,  and 
the  poll  had  been  adjourned.  The  probabilities  of  serious 
mischief  had  grown  strong  enough  to  prevail  over  the  rec- 
tor's objection  to  getting  military  aid  within  reach;  and 
when  Felix  re-entered  the  town,  a  galloping  messenger  had 
already  been  dispatched  to  Duffield.  The  rector  wished 
to  ride  out  again,  and  read  the  Riot  Act  from  a  point 
where  he  could  be  better  heard  than  from  the  window  of 
the  Marquis;  but  Mr.  Crow,  the  high  constable,  who  had 
returned  from  closer  observation,  insisted  that  the  risk 
would  be  too  great.  New  special  constables  had  been 
sworn  in,  but  Mr.  Crow  said  prophetically  that  if  once 
mischief  began,  the  mob  was  past  caring  for  constables. 

But  the  rector^s  voice  was  ringing  and  penetrating,  and 
when  he  appeared  on  the  narrow  balcony  and  read  the 
formula,  commanding  all  men  to  go  to  their  homes  or  about 
their  lawful  business,  there  was  a  strong  transient  effect. 
Every  one  within  hearing  listened,  and  for  a  few  moments 
after  the  final  words,  "  G-od  save  the  King! "  the  compara- 
19 


290  FELIX   HOLT, 

tive  silence  continued.  Then  the  people  began  to  move, 
the  buzz  rose  again,  and  grew,  and  grew,  till  it  turned  to 
shouts  and  roaring  as  before.  The  movement  was  that  of 
a  flood  hemmed  in;  it  carried  nobody  away.  "Whether  the 
crowd  would  obey  the  order  to  disperse  themselves  within 
an  hour,  was  a  doubt  that  approached  nearer  to  a  negative 
certainty. 

Presently  Mr.  Crow,  who  held  himself  a  tactician,  took 
a  well-intentioned  step,  which  went  far  to  fulfill  his  own 
prophecy.  He  had  arrived  with  the  magistrates  by  a  back 
way  at  the  Seven  Stars,  and  here  again  the  Riot  Act  was 
read  from  a  window,  with  much  the  same  result  as  before. 
The  rector  had  returned  by  the  same  way  to  the  Marquis, 
as  the  headquarters  most  suited  for  administration,  but 
Mr.  Crow  remained  at  the  other  extremity  of  King  Street, 
where  some  awe-striking  jDresence  was  certainly  needed. 
Seeing  that  the  tiriie  was  passing,  and  all  effect  from  the 
voice  of  law  had  disappeared,  he  showed  himself  at  an 
upper  window,  and  addressed  the  crowd,  telling  them  that 
the  soldiers  had  been  sent  for,  and  that  if  they  did  not 
disjjerse  they  would  have  cavalry  upon  them  instead  of 
constables. 

Mr.  Crow,  like  some  other  high  constables  more  cele- 
brated in  history,  "^^  enjoyed  a  bad  reputation";  that  is  to 
say,  he  enjoyed  many  things  which  caused  his  reputation 
to  be  bad,  and  he  was  anything  but  popular  in  Treby.  It 
is  probable  that  a  pleasant  message  would  have  lost  some- 
thing from  his  lips,  and  what  he  actually  said  was  so 
unpleasant,  that,  instead  of  persuading  the  crowd,  it 
appeared  to  enrage  them.  Some  one,  snatching  a  raw 
potato  from  a  sack  in  the  greengrocers  shop  behind  him, 
threw  it  at  the  constable,  and  hit  him  on  the  mouth. 
Straightw^ay  raw  potatoes  and  turnips  were  flying  by 
twenties  at  the  Avindows  of  the  Seven  Stars,  and  the  panes 
were  smashed.  Felix,  who  was  half-way  up  the  street, 
heard  the  voices  turning  to  a  savage  roar,  and  saw  a  rush 
toward  the  hardware  shop,  which  furnished  more  effect- 
ive weapons  and  missiles  than  turnips  and  potatoes.  Then 
a  cry  ran  along  that  the  Tories  had  sent  for  the  soldiers, 
and  if  tliose  among  the  mob  who  called  themselves  Tories 
as  willingly  as  anything  else  were  disposed  to  take  whatever 
called  itself  the  Tory  side,  they  only  helped  the  main 
result  of  reckless  disorder. 

But  there  were  proofs  that  the  predominant  will  of  the 
crowd   was   against    "  Debarry's   men,"  and   in   favor   of 


THE    RADICAL.  291 

Transoine.  Several  shops  were  invaded,  and  they  were  all 
of  them  "  Tory  shops."  The  tradesmen  who  could  do  so, 
now  locked  their  doors  and  barricaded  their  windows 
witliiii.  There  was  a  panic  among  the  householders  of 
this  hitherto  peaceful  town,  and  a  general  anxiety  for  the 
military  to  arrive.  The  rector  was  in  painful  anxiety  on 
this  head;  he  had  sent  out  two  messengers  as  secretly  as  he 
could  toward  Hathercote,  to  order  the  soldiers  to  ride 
straight  to  the  town;  but  he  feared  that  these  messengers 
had  been  somehow  intercepted. 

It  was  three  o'clock;  more  than  an  hour  had  elapsed 
since  the  reading  of  the  Eiot  Act.  Tlie  rector  of  Treby 
Magna  wrote  an  indignant  message  and  sent  it  to  the  Ram, 
to  Mr.  Lingon,  the  rector  of  Little  Treby,  saying  that 
there  was  evidently  a  Radical  animus  in  the  mob,  and  that 
Mr.  Transome's  party  should  hold  themselves  peculiarly 
responsible.     Where  was  Mr.  Jermyn? 

Mr.  Lingon  replied  that  he  was  going  himself  out 
toward  Dutlield  to  see  after  the  soldiers.  As  for  Jermyn, 
he  was  not  that  attorney's  sponsor;'  he  believed  tliat 
Jermyn  was  gone  away  somewhere  on  business — to  fetch 
voters. 

A  serious  effort  was  now  being  made  by  all  the  civil 
force  at  command.  The  December  day  would  soon  be 
passing  into  evening,  and  all  disorder  would  be  aggravated 
by  obscurity.  The  horrors  of  fire  were  as  likely  to  happen 
as  any  minor  evil.  The  constables,  as  many  of  them  as 
could  do  so,  armed  themselves  with  carbines  and  sabres; 
all  the  respectable  inhabitants  who  had  any  courage, 
prepared  themselves  to  struggle  for  order;  and  many  felt 
with  Mr.  Wace  and  Mr.  Tiliot  that  the  nearest  duty  was 
to  defend  the  breweries  and  the  spirit  and  wine  vaults, 
where  the  property  was  of  a  sort  at  once  most  likely 
to  be  threatened  and  most  dangerous  in  its  effects.  Tli'e 
rector,  with  fine  determination,  got  on  horseback  again, 
as  the  best  mode  of  leading  the  constables,  who  could  only 
act  efficiently  in  a  close  body.  By  his  direction  the  column 
of  armed  men  avoided  the  main  street,  and  made  their 
way  along  a  back  road,  that  they  might  occupy  the  two 
chief  laues  leading  to  the  wine-vaults  and  the  brewery, 
and  bear  down  on  the  crowd  from  these  openings,  which  it 
was  especially  desirable  to  guard. 

Meanwhile  Felix  Holt  had  been  hotly  occupied  in  King 
Street.  After  the  first  window-smashing  at  the  Seven 
Stars,  there  was  a  sufficient  reason  for  damaging  that  inn 


392  FELIX    HOLT, 

to  the  utmost.  The  destructive  spirit  tends  toward  com- 
pleteness; and  any  object  once  maimed  or  otherwise 
injured,  is  as  readily  doomed  by  unreasoning  men  as  by 
unreasoning  boys.  Also  the  Seven  Stars  sheltered  Spratt; 
and  to  some  Sproxton  men  in  front  of  that  inn  it  was 
exasperating  that  Spratt  should  be  safe  and  sound  on  a 
day  when  blows  were  going,  and  justice  might  be  rendered. 
And  again,  there  was  the  general  desirableness  of  being 
inside  a  public  house. 

Felix  had  at  last  been  willingly  urged  on  to  this  spot. 
Hitherto  swayed  by  the  crowd,  he  had  been  able  to  do 
nothing  but  defend  himself  and  keep  on  his  legs;  but  he 
foresaw  that  the  ])eople  would  burst  into  the  inn:  he  heard 
cries  of  " Spratt!"  "Fetch  him  out!"  "We'll  pitch  him 
out!"  "Pummel  him!"  It  was  not  unlikely  that  lives 
might  be  sacrificed;  and  it  was  intolerable  to  Felix  to  be 
witnessing  the  blind  outrages  of  this  mad  crowd,  and  yet 
be  doing  nothing  to  counteract  them.  Even  some  vain 
effort  would  satisfy  him  better  than  mere  gazing.  Within 
the  walls  of  the  inn  he  might  save  some  one.  He  went  in 
with  a  miscellaneous  set,  who  dispersed  themselves  with 
different  objects — some  to  the  tap-room,  and  to  search  for 
the  cellar:  some  up-stairs  to  search  in  all  the  rooms  for 
Spratt,  or  anyone  else,  perhaps,  as  a  temporary  scapegoat 
for  Spratt.  Guided  by  the  screams  of  women,  Felix  at 
last  got  to  a  high  up-stairs  passage,  where  the  landlady 
and  some  of  her  servants  were  running  away  in  helpless 
terror  from  two  or  three  half-tipsy  men,  who  had  been 
emptying  a  spirit-decanter  in  the  bar.  Assuming  the  tone 
of  a  mob-leader  he  cried  out,  "Here,  boys,  here's  better 
fun  this  way — come  with  me!"  and  drew  the  men  back 
with  him  along  the  passage.  They  reached  the  lower 
staircase  in  time  to  see  the  unhappy  Spratt  being  dragged, 
coatless  and  screaming,  down  the  steps.  No  one  at  present 
was  striking  or  kicking  him;  it  seemed  as  if  he  were  being- 
reserved  for  punishment  on  some  wider  area,  where  the 
satisfaction  might  be  more  generally  shared.  Felix  fol- 
lowed close,  determined,  if  he  could,  to  rescue  both 
assailers  and  assaulted  from  the  worst  consequences.  His 
mind  was  busy  with  possible  devices. 

Down  the  stairs,  out  along  the  stones  through  the  gate- 
way, Spratt  was  dragged  as  a  mere  heap  of  linen  and  cloth 
•rags.  When  he  was  got  outside  the  gatcAvay,  there  was 
an  immense  hooting  and  roaring,  though  many  there  had 
no  grudge  against  him,  and  only  guessed  that  others  had 


o 


THE    RADICAL.  293 

the  grudge.     But  this  was  the  narrower  part  of  the  street; 
it  widened  as  it  went  onward,  and  Spratt  was  dragged  on. 
his  enemies  crying,  ' '  We^il  make  a  ring  —  we'll  see  how 
frightened  he  looks ! '' 

''Kick  him,  and  have  done  with  him,"  Felix  heard 
another  say.  "  Let's  go  to  Tiliot's  vaults — there's  more 
ofiu  there!" 

Here  were  two  hideous  threats.  In  dragging  Spratt 
onward  the  people  were  getting  very  near  to  the  lane  lead- 
ing up  to  Tiliot's.  Felix  kept  as  close  as  he  could  to  the 
threatened  victim.  He  had  thrown  away  his  own  stick, 
and  carried  a  bliidgeon  which  had  escaped  from  the  hands 
of  an  invader  at  the  Seven  Stars;  his  head  was  bare;  he 
looked,  to  undiscerning  eyes,  like  a  leading  spirit  of  the 
mob.  In  this  condition  he  was  observed  by  several  persons 
looking  anxiously  from  their  upper  windows,  and  finally 
observed  to  push  himself,  by  violent  efforts,  close  behind 
the  dragged  man. 

Meanwhile,  the  foremost  among  the  constables,  who, 
coming  by  the  back  way,  had  now  reached  the  opening  of 
Tiliot's  Lane,  discerned  that  the  crowd  had  a  victim 
amongst  them.  One  spirited  fellow,  named  Tucker,  who 
was  a  regular  "constable,  feeling  that  no  time  was  to  be  lost 
in  meditation,  called  on  his  neighbor  to  follow  him,  and  with 
a  sabre  that  happened  to  be  his  weapon  got  a  way  for  him- 
self where  he  was  not  expected,  by  dint  of  cpiick  resolution. 
At  this  moment  Spratt  had  been  let  go — had  been  dropped, 
in  fact,  almost  lifeless  with  terror,  on  the  street  stones, 
and  the  men  round  him  had  retreated  for  a  little  space,  as 
if  to  amuse  themselves  with  looking  at  him.  Felix  had 
taken  his  opportunity;  and  seeing  the  first  step  toward  a 
plan  he  was  bent  on,  he  sprang  forward  close  to  the  cower- 
ing Spratt.  As  he  did  this,  Tucker  had  cut  his  way  to  the 
spot,  and  imagining  Felix  to  be  the  destined  executioner 
of  Spratt  —  for  any  discrimination  of  Tucker's  lay  in  his 
muscles  rather  than  his  eyes — he  rushed  up  to  Felix,  mean- 
ing to  collar  him  and  throw  him  down.  But  Felix  had 
rapid  senses  and  quick  thoughts;  he  discerned  the  situa- 
tion; he  chose  between  two  evils.  Quick  as  lightning  he 
frustrated  the  constable,  fell  upon  him,  and  tried  to  master 
liis  weapon.  In  the  struggle,  which  was  watched  without 
interference,  the  constable  fell  undermost,  and  Felix  got 
his  weapon.  He  started  up  with  the  bare  sabre  in  his 
hand.  The  crowd  round  him  cried  ''Hurray!"  with  a 
sense  that  he  was   on   their   side  against  the  constable. 


294  FELIX    HOLT, 

Tucker  did  not  rise  immediately;  but  Felix  did  not  imag- 
ine that  he  was  much  hurt. 

*' Don't  touch  him!"  said  Felix.  "Let  him  go.  Here, 
bring  Spratt,  and  follow  me.-" 

Felix  was  perfectly  conscious  that  he  was  in  the  midst 
of  a  tangled  business.  But  he  had  chiefly  before  his 
imagination  the  horrors  that  might  come  if  the  mass  of 
wild  chaotic  desires  and  impulses  around  him  were  not 
diverted  from  any  further  attacks  on  places  where  they 
would  get  in  the  midst  of  intoxicating  and  inflammable 
materials.  It  was  not  a  -moment  in  which  a  spirit  like  his 
could  calculate  the  effect  of  misunderstanding  as  to  him- 
self: nature  never  makes  men  who  are  at  once  energetically 
sympathetic  and  minutely  calculating.  He  believed  he 
had  the  power  and  was  resolved  to  try,  to  carry  the  dan- 
gerous mass  out  of  mischief  till  the  military  came  to  awe 
them — which  he  supposed,  from  Mr.  Crow's  announcement 
a  long  time  ago,  must  be  a  near  event. 

He  was  followed  the  more  willingly,  because  Tiliot's  lane 
was  seen  by  the  hindmost  to  be  now  defended  by  constables, 
some  of  whom  had  firearms;  and  where  there  is  no  strong 
counter-movement,  any  proposition  to  do  something  that  is 
unspecified  stimulates  stupid  curiosity.  To-  many  of  the 
Sproxton  men  wbo  were  within  sight  of  him,  Felix  was 
known  personally,  and  vaguely  believed  to  be  a  man  who 
meant  many  queer  things,  not  at  all  of  an  everyday  kind. 
Pressing  along  like  a  leader,  with  the  sabre  in  his  hand, 
and  inviting  them  to  bring  on  Spratt,  there  seemed  a 
better  reason  for  following  him  than  for  doing  anything 
'Ise.  A  man  with  a  definite  will  and  an  energetic  per- 
jonality  acts  as  a  sort  of  flag  to  draw  and  bind  together 
the  foolish  units  of  a  mob.  It  was  on  this  sort  of  influ- 
ence over  men  whose  mental  state  was  a  mere  medley 
of  appetites  and  confused  impressions,  that  Felix  had 
dared  to  count.  He  hurried  them  along  with  words  of 
invitation,  telling  them  to  hold  up  Spratt  and  not  drag 
him;  and  those  behind  followed  him,  with  a  growing 
belief  that  he  had  some  design  worth  knowing,  while 
those  in  front  were  urged  along  partly  by  the  same 
notion,  partly  by  the  sense  that  there  was  a  motive  in 
those  behind  them,  not  knowing  what  the  motive  was. 
It  was  that  mixture  of  pushing  forward  and  being  pushed 
forward,  which  is  a  brief  history  of  most  human  things. 

What  Felix  really  intended  to  do,  ^\'as  to  get  the  crowd 
by  the  nearest  way  out  of  the  town,  and  induce  them  to 


THE   KADICAL.  295 

skirt  it  on  the  north  side  with  him,  keeping  up  in  them 
the  idea  that  he  was  leading  them  to  execute  some  strata- 
gem by  which  they  would  surprise  something  worth  attack- 
ing, and  circumvent  the  constables  who  were  defending  the 
lanes.  In  the  meantime  he  trusted  that  the  soldiers  would 
liave  arrived,  and  with  this  sort  of  mob  which  was  ani- 
mated by  no  real  political  passion  or  fury  against  social  dis- 
tinctions, it  was  in  the  highest  degree  unlikely  that  there 
would  be  any  resistance  to  a  military  force.  The  presence 
of  fifty  soldiers  would  probably  be  enough  to  scatter  the 
rioting  hundreds.  How  numerous  the  mob  was,  no  one 
ever  knew:  many  inhabitants  after  ward  were  ready  to 
swear  that  there  must  have  been  at  least  two  thousand  riot- 
ers. Felix  knew  he  was  incurring  great  risks;  but  ''his 
blood  was  up":  we  hardly  allow  enough  in  common  life  for 
the  results  of  that  enkindled  passionate  enthusiasm  which, 
under  other  conditions,  makes  world-famous  deeds. 

He  was  making  for  a  point  where  the  street  branched 
off  on  one  side  toward  a  speedy  opening  between  hedge- 
rows, on  the  otlier  toward  the  shabby  wideness  of  Pollard's 
End.  At  this  forking  of  the  street  there  was  a  large  space, 
in  the  centre  of  which  there  was  a  small  stone  platform, 
mounting  by  three  steps,  witli  an  old  green  finger-post  upon 
it.  Felix  went  straight  to  this  platform  and  stepped  upon 
it,  crying  "Halt!"  in  a  loud  voice  to  the  men  behind  and 
before  him,  and  calling  to  those  who  held  Spratt  to  bring 
him  there.  All  came  to  a  stand  with  faces  toward  the 
finger-post,  and  perhaps  for  the  first  time  the  extremities 
of  the  crowd  got  a  definite  idea  that  a  man  with  a  sabre  i]i 
his  hand  was  taking  the  command. 

"Now!"  said  Felix,  when  Spratt  had  been  brought  on 
to  the  stone  platform,  faint  and  trembling,  "has  anybody 
got  cord?  if  not,  handkerchiefs  knotted  fast;  give  them 
to  me." 

He  drew  out  his  own  handkerchief,  and  two  or  three 
others  were  mustered  and  handed  to  him.  He  ordered 
them  to  be  knotted  together,  while  curious  eyes  were  fixed 
on  him.  Was  he  going  to  have  Spratt  hanged?  Felix 
kept  fast  hold  of  his  w'eapon,  and  ordered  others  to  act. 

"Now,  put  it  round  his  waist,  wind  his  arms  in,  draw 
them  a  little  backward  —  so!  and  tie  it  fast  on  the  otlier 
side  of  the  post." 

When  that  was  done,  Felix  said,  imperatively  — 

"Leave  him  there — we  shall  come  back  to  him;  let  us 


296  FELIX    HOLT, 

maKe  haste;  march  along,  lads!    Up  Park  Street  and  down 
Hobb's  Lane.'' 

It  was  the  best  chance  he  could  think  of  for  saving 
Spratt's  life.  And  he  succeeded.  The  pleasure  of  seeing 
the  helpless  man  tied  up  suJBiced  for  the  moment,  if 
there  were  any  who  had  ferocity  enough  to  count  much 
on  coming  back  to  him.  Xobody's  imagination  repre- 
sented the  certainty  that  some  one  out  of  the  houses  at 
hand  would  soon  come  and  untie  him  when  he  was  left 
alone. 

And  the  rioters  pushed  up  Park  Street,  a  noisy  stream, 
with  Felix  still  in  the  midst  of  them,  though  he  was 
laboring  hard  to  get  his  way  to  the  front.  He" wished  to 
determine  the  course  of  the  crowd  along  a  by-road  called 
Hobb's  Lane,  which  would  have  taken  them  to  the  other — 
the  Dufheld  end  of  the  town.  He  urged  several  of  the 
men  round  him,  one  of  whom  was  no  less  a  person  than 
the  big  Dredge,  our  old  Sproxton  acquaintance,  to  get 
forward,  and  be  sure  that  all  the  fellows  would  go  down 
the  lane,  else  they  would  spoil  sport.  Hitherto  Felix  had 
been  successful,  and  he  had  gone  along  with  an  unbroken 
impulse.  But  soon  something  occurred  which  brought 
with  a  terrible  shock  the  sense  that  his  plan  might  turn 
out  to  be  as  mad  as  all  bold  projects  are  seen  to  be  when 
they  have  failed. 

Mingled  with  the  more  headlong  and  half-drunken 
crowd  there  were  some  sharp-visaged  men  who  loved  the 
irrationality  of  riots  for  something  else  than  its  own  sake, 
and  who  at  present  were  not  so  much  the  richer  as  they 
desired  to  be,  for  the  pains  they  had  taken  in  coming  to 
the  Treby  election,  induced  by  certain  prognostics  gath- 
ered at  Duffield  on  the  nomination-day  that  there  might 
be  the  conditions  favorable  to  that  confusion  which  was 
always  a  harvest-time.  It  was  known  to  some  of  these 
sharp  men  that  Park  Street  led  out  toward  the  grand 
house  of  Treby  Manor,  which  was  as  good  —  nay,  better 
for  their  purpose  than  the  bank.  While  Felix  was  enter- 
taining his  ardent  purpose,  these  other  sons  of  Adam 
were  entertaining  another  ardent  purpose  of  their  peculiar 
sort,  and  the  moment  was  come  when  they  were  to  have 
their  trium^sh. 

From  the  front  ranks  backward  toward  Felix  there  ran 
a  new  summons — a  new  invitation. 

''Let  us  go  to  Treby  Manor!" 

From  that  moment  Felix  was  powerless;  a  new  definite 


THE    RADICAL.  297 

suggestion  overrode  his  vaguer  influence.  There  was  a 
determined  rush  past  Hobb's  Lane,  and  not  down  it. 
Felix  was  carried  along  too.  He  did  not  know  whether  to 
wish  the  contrary.  Once  on  the  road,  out  of  town,  with 
openings  into  fields  and  with  the  wide  park  at  hand,  it 
would  have  been  easy  to  liberate  himself  from  the  crowd. 
At  first  it  seemed  to  him  the  better  part  to  do  this,  and  to 
get  back  to  the  town  as  fast  as  he  could,  in  the  hope  of 
finding  the  military  and  getting  a  detachment  to  come  and 
save  the  Manor.  But  he  reflected  that  the  course  of  the 
mob  had  been  suflaciently  seen,  and  that  there  were  plenty 
of  jjeople  in  Park  Street  to  carry  the  information  faster 
than  he  could.  It  seemed  more  necessary  that  he  should 
secure  the  presence  of  some  help  for  the  family  at  the 
Manor  by  going  there  himself.  The  Debarry's  were  not 
of  the  class  of  people  he  was  wont  to  be  anxious  about;  but 
Felix  Holt's  conscience  was  alive  to  the  accusation  that  an}' 
danger  they  might  be  in  now  was  brought  on  by  a  deed  of 
his.  In  these  moments  of  bitter  vexation  and  disappoint- 
ment, it  did  occur  to  him  tbat  very  unpleasant  conse- 
quences might  be  hanging  over  him  of  a  kind  quite  different 
from  inward  dissatisfaction;  but  it  was  useless  now  to 
think  of  averting  such  consequences.  As  he  was  pressed 
along  with  the  multitude  into  Treby  Park,  his  very  move- 
ment seemed  to  him  only  an  image  of  the  day's  fatalities, 
in  which  the  multitudinous  small  wickednesses  of  small 
selfish  ends,  really  undirected  toward  any  larger  result, 
had  issued  in  widely-shared  mischief  that  might  yet  be 
hideous. 

The  light  was  declining:  already  the  candles  shone 
through  many  windows  of  the  Manor.  Already  the  fore- 
most part  of  the  crowd  had  burst  into  the  offices,  and 
adroit  men  were  busy  in  the  right  places  to  find  plate,  after 
setting  others  to  force  the  butler  into  unlocking  the  cellars; 
and  Felix  had  only  Just  been  able  to  force  his  way  on  to 
the  front  terrace,  with  the  hope  of  getting  to  the  rooms 
where  he  would  find  the  ladies  of  the  household  and  com- 
fort tliem  with  the  assurance  that  rescue  must  soon  come, 
when  the  sound  of  horses'  feet  convinced  him  that  the 
rescue  was  nearer  than  he  had  expected.  Just  as  he  heard 
the  horses,  he  had  approached  the  large  window  of  a  room 
where  a  brilliant  light  suspended  from  the  ceiling  showed 
him  a  group  of  women  clinging  together  in  terror.  Others 
of  the  crowd  were  pushing  their  way  up  the  terrace-steps 
and  gravel-slopes  at  various  points.     Hearino:  the  horses. 


298  FELIX   HOLT, 

he  kept  his  post  in  front  of  the  window,  and,  motioning 
with  his  sabre,  cried  out  to  the  oncomers,  "Keep  back!  I 
hear  the  soldiers  coming/^  Some  scrambled  back,  some 
paused  automatically. 

The  louder  and  louder  sound  of  the  hoofs  changed  its 
pace  and  distribution.  ''Halt!  Fire!''  Bang!  bang' 
bang! — came  deafening  the  ears  of  the  men  on  the  terrace. 

Before  they  had  time  or  nerve  to  move,  there  was  a  rush- 
ing sound  closer  to  them — again  "Fire!"  a  bullet  whizzed, 
and  passed  through  Felix  Holt's  shoulder — the  shoulder  of 
the  arm  that  held  the  naked  weapon  which  shone  in  the 
light  from  the  window. 

Felix  fell.  The  rioters  ran  confusedly,  like  terrified 
sheep.  Some  of  the  soldiers,  turning,  drove  them  along 
with  the  flat  of  their  swords.  The  greater  difficulty  Avas 
to  clear  the  invaded  offices. 

The  rector,  who  with  another  magistrate  and  several 
other  gentlemen  on  horseback  hud  accompanied  the  sol- 
diers, now  jumped  on  to  the  terrace,  and  hurried  to  the 
ladies  of  the  family. 

Presently  there  was  a  group  round  Felix,  Avho  had 
fainted,  and,  reviving,  had  fainted  again.  He  had  had 
little  food  during  the  day,  and  had  been  overwrought. 
Two  of  the  group  were  civilians,  but  only  one  of  them 
knew  Felix,  the  other  being  a  magistrate  not  resident  in 
Treby.  The  one  who  knew  Felix  was  Mr.  John  Johnson, 
whose  zeal  for  the  public  peace  had  brought  him  from 
Duffield  when  he  heard  that  the  soldiers  were  summoned. 

'•I  know  this  man  very  well,"  said  Mr.  Johnson.  "He 
is  a  dangerous  character — quite  revolutionary."' 

It  was  a  weary  night;  and  the  next  day,  Felix,  whose 
wound  Avas  declared  trivial.  Was  lodged  in  Loamford  Jail. 
There  were  three  charges  against  him:  that  he  had 
assaulted  a  constable,  that  he  had  committed  manslaughter 
(Tucker  was  dead  from  spinal  concussion),  and  that  he 
had  led  a  riotous  onslaught  on  a  dwelling  house. 

Four  other  men  were  committed:  one  of  them  for  pos- 
sessing himself  of  a  gold  cup  with  the  Debarry  arms  on  it; 
the  three  others,  one  of  whom  was  the  collier  Dredge,  for 
riot  and  assault. 

That  morning  Treby  town  was  no  longer  in  terror;  but 
it  was  in  much  sadness.  Other  men,  more  innocent  than 
the  hated  Spratt,  were  groaning  under  severe  bodily  inju- 
ries. And  poor  Tucker's  corpse  was  not  the  only  one  that 
had  been  lifted  from  the  pavement.     It  is  true  that  none 


THE    RADICAL.  299 

grieved  mucli  for  the  other  dead  man,  unless  it  be  grief  to 
say,  ''Poor  old  fellow!"  He  had  been  trampled  upon, 
doubtless,  where  he  fell  drunkenly,  near  the  entrance  of 
the  Seven  Stars.  This  second  corpse  was  old  Tommy 
Trounsem,  the  bill-sticker — otherwise  Thomas  Transome, 
the  last  of  a  very  old  family-line. 


CHAPTER  XXXIY. 


The  fields  are  hoary  with  December's  frost. 

I  too  am  hoary  with  the  chills  of  age. 

But  through  the  flekls  and  through  the  untrodden  woods 

Is  rest  and  stillness— only  in  ray  heart 

The  pall  of  winter  shi-ouds  a  throbbing  Ufa. 

A  WEEK  after  that  Treby  riot,  Harold  Transome  was  at 
Transome  Court.  He  had  returned  from  a  hasty  visit  to 
town  to  keep  his  Christmas  at  this  delightful  country  home, 
not  in  the  best  Christmas  spirits.  He  had  lost  the  election; 
but  if  that  had  been  his  only  annoyapce,  he  had  good 
humor  and  good  sense  enough  to  have  borne  it  as  well  as 
most  men,  and  to  have  paid  the  eight  or  nine  thousand, 
which  had  been  the  price  of  ascertaining  that  he  was  not 
to  sit  in  the  next  Parliament,  without  useless  grumbling. 
But  the  disappointments  of  life  can  never,  any  more  than 
its  pleasures,  be  estimated  singly;  and  the  healthiest  and 
most  agreeable  of  men  is  exposed  to  that  coincidence  of 
various  vexations,  each  heightening  the  effect  of  the  other, 
which  may  produce  in  him  something  corresponding  to 
the  spontaneous  and  externally  unaccountable  moodiness 
of  the  morbid  and  disagreeable. 

Harold  mio;ht  not  have  grieved  much  at  a  small  riot  in 
Treby,  even  if  it  had  caused  some  expenses  to  fall  on  the 
county;  but  the  turn  which  the  riot  had  actually  taken 
was  a  bitter  morsel  for  rumination,  on  more  gi'ounds  than 
one.  However  the  disturbances  had  arisen  and  been 
aggravated — and  probably  no  one  knew  the  whole  truth 
on  these  points — the  conspicuous,  gravest  incidents  had 
all  tended  to  throw  the  blame  on  the  Radical  party,  that 
is  to  say,  on  Transome  and  on  Transome's  agents;  and  so 
far  the  candidateship  and  its  results  had  done  Harold  dis- 
honor in  the  county:  precisely  the  opposite  effect  to  that 
which  Avas  a  dear  object  of  his  ambition.  More  than  this, 
Harold^s  conscience  was  active  enough  to  be  very  unpleas- 


300  FELIX   HOLT, 

aiitly  affected  by  what  had  befallen  Felix  Holt.  His 
memory,  always  good,  was  particularly  vivid  in  its  reten- 
tion of  Felix  Holt's  complaint  to  him  about  the  ti'eating 
of  the  Sproxton  men,  and  of  the  subsequent  irritating 
scene  in  Jermyn's  office,  when  the  personage  with  the 
inauspicious  name  of  Johnson  had  expounded  to  him  the 
imi^ossibility  of  revising  an  electioneering  scheme  once 
begun,  and  of  turning  your  vehicle  back  when  it  had 
already  begun  to  roll  downhill.  Eemembering  Felix 
Holt's  words  of  indignant  warning  about  hiring  men 
with  drink  in  them  to  make  a  noise,  Harold  could  not 
resist  the  urgent  impression  that  the  offenses  for  which 
Felix  was  committed  were  fatalities,  not  brought  about 
by  any  willing  co-operation  of  his  with  the  noisy  rioters, 
but  arising  probably  from  some  rather  ill-judged  efforts 
to  counteract  their  violence.  And  this  urgent  impression 
which  insisted  on  growing  into  a  conviction,  became  in 
one  of  its  phases  an  uneasy  sense  that  he  held  evidence 
which  would  at  once  tend  to  exonerate  Felix  and  to  place 
himself  and  his  agents  in  anything  but  a  desirable  light. 
It  was  likely  thai;  some  one  else  could  give  equivalent 
evidence  in  favor  of  Felix — the  little  talkative  Dissenting 
preacher,  for  example;  but,  anyhow,  the  affair  with  the 
Sproxton  men  would  be  ripped  open  and  made  the  worst 
of  by  the  opposite  parties.  The  man  Avho  has  failed  in 
the  use  of  some  indirectness,  is  helped  very  little  by  the 
fact  that  his  rivals  are  men  to  whom  that  indirectness  is 
a  something  human,  very  far  from  being  alien.  There 
remains  this  grand  distinction,  that  he  has  failed,  and  that 
the  jet  of  light  is  thrown  entirely  on  his  misdoings. 

In  this  matter  Harold  felt  himself  a  victim.  Could  he 
hinder  the  tricks  of  his  agents?  In  this  particular  case 
he  had  tried  to  hinder  them,  and  had  tried  in  vain.  He 
had  not  loved  the  two  agents  in  question,  to  begin  with; 
and  now  at  this  later  stage  of  events  he  was  more  innocent 
than  ever  of  bearing  them  anything  but  the  most  sincere 
ill-will.  He  was  more  utterly  exasperated  with  them  than 
he  would  probably  have  been  if  his  one  great  passion  had 
been  for  public  virtue.  Jermyn,  with  his  John  Johnson, 
had  added  this  ugly,  dirty  business  of  the  Treby  election 
to  all  the  long-accumulating  list  of  offenses,  which  Harold 
was  resolved  to  visit  on  him  to  the  utmost.  He  had  seen 
some  handbills  carrying  the  insinuation  that  there  was  a 
discreditable  indebtedness  to  Jermyn  on  the  part  of  the 
Transomes.     If  any  such  notions  existed  apart  from  elec- 


'301 

tioneering  slander,  there  was  all  the  more  reason  for  letting 
the  world  see  Jermyn  severely  punished  for  abusing  his 
power  over  the  family  affairs,  and  tampering  with  the 
family  property.  And  the  world  certainly  should  see  this 
with  as  little  delay  as  possible.  The  cool,  confident,  assum- 
ing fellow  should  be  bled  to  the  last  drop  in  compensation, 
and  all  connection  with  him  be  finally  got  rid  of.  Now 
that  the  election  was  done  with,  Harold  meant  to  devote 
himself  to  private  affairs,  till  everything  lay  in  complete 
order  under  his  own  sujDervision. 

This  morning  he  was  seated  as  usual  in  his  private  room, 
which  had  now  been  handsomely  fitted  up  for  him.  It  was 
but  the  third  morning  after  the  first  Christmas  he  had 
spent  in  his  English  home  for  fifteen  years,  and  the  home 
looked  like  an  eminently  desirable  one.  The  white  frost 
was  now  lying  on  the  iDroad  lawn,  on  the  many-formed 
leaves  of  the  evergreens  and  on  the  giant  trees  at  a  dis- 
tance. Logs  of  dry  oak  blazed  on  the  hearth;  the  carpet 
was  like  warm  moss  under  his  feet;  he  had  breakfasted 
Just  according  to  his  taste,  and  he  had  the  interesting 
occupations  of  a  large  proprietor  to  fill  the  morning.  All 
through  the  house  now  steps  were  noiseless  on  carpets  or 
on  fine  matting;  there  was  warmth  in  hall  and  corridors; 
there  were  servants  enough  to  do  everything,  and  to 
do  it  at  the  right  time.  Skillful  Dominic  was  always 
at  hand  to  meet  his  master's  demands,  and  his  bland 
presence  diffused  itself  like  a  smile  over  the  house- 
hold, infecting  the  gloomy  English  mind  with  the  belief 
that  life  was  easy,  and  making  his  real  predominance  seem 
as  soft  and  light  as  a  down  quilt.  Old  Mr.  Transome  had 
gathered  new  courage  and  strength  since  little  Harry  and 
Dominic  had  come,  and  since  Harold  had  insisted  on  his 
taking  drives.  Mrs.  Transome  herself  was  seen  on  a  fresh 
background  with  a  gown  of  rich  new  stuff.  And  if,  in 
spite  of  this,  she  did  not  seem  happy,  Harold  either  did 
not  observe  it,  or  kindly  ignored  it  as  the  necessary  frailty 
of  elderly  women  whose  lives  have  had  too  much  of  dull- 
ness and  privation.  Our  minds  get  tricks  and  attitudes 
as  our  bodies  do,  thought  Harold,  and  age  stiffens  them 
into  unalterableness.  "Poor  mother!  I  confess  I  should 
not  like  to  be  an  elderly  woman  myself.  One  requires  a 
good  deal  of  the  i^urring  cat  for  that,  or  else  of  the  loving 
grandame.  I  wish  she  would  take  more  to  little  Harry. 
I  suppose  she  has  her  suspicions  al)out  the  lad's  mother, 
and  is  as  rigid  in  those  matters  as  in  her  Toryism.     How- 


303  FELIX    HOLT, 

ever,  I  do  what  I  can;  it  would  be  difficult  to  say  what 
there  is  wanting  to  her  in  the  way  of  indulgence  and 
luxury  to  make  up  for  the  old  niggardly  life." 

And  certainly  Transome  Court  was  now  such  a  home  as 
many  women  would  covet.  Yet  even  Harold's  own  satis- 
faction in  the  midst  of  its  elegant  comfort  needed  at 
present  to  be  sustained  by  the  expectation  of  gratified 
resentment.  He  was  obviously  less  bright  and  enjoying 
than  usual,  and  his  mother,  who  watched  him  closely 
without  daring  to  ask  questions,  had  gathered  hints  and 
draAvn  inferences  enough  to  make  her  feel  sure  that  thei'e 
was  some  storm  gatbering  between  him  and  Jermyn.  Sbe 
did  not  dare  to  ask  questions,  and  yet  she  had  not  resisted 
the  temptation  to  say  something  bitter  about  Harold's 
failure  to  get  returned  as  a  Radical,  helping,  with  femi- 
nine self -defeat,  to  exclude  herself  more  completely  from 
any  consultation  by  him.  In  this  way  poor  women,  whose 
power  lies  solely  in  their  influence,  make  themselves  like 
music  out  of  tune,  and  only  move  men  to  run  away. 

This  morning  Harold  had  ordered  his  letters  to  be 
brought  to  him  at  the  breakfast-table,  which  was  not  his 
usual  practice.  His  mother  could  see  that  there  were 
London  business  letters  about  which  he  was  eager,  and 
she  had  found  out  that  the  letter  brought  by  a  clerk  the 
day  before  was  to  make  an  appointment  with  Harold  for 
Jermvu  to  come  to  Transome  Court  at  eleven  this  morning. 
She  observed  Harold  swallow  his  coffee  and  push  away  his 
plate  with  an  early  abstraction  from  the  business  of  break- 
fast which  was  not  at  all  after  his  usual  manner.  She 
herself  ate  notliing:  her  sips  of  tea  seemed  to  excite  her; 
her  cheeks  flushed,  and  her  hands  were  cold.  She  was 
still  young  and  ardent  in  her  terrors;  the  passions  of  the 
past  were  living  in  her  dread. 

When  Harold  left  the  table  she  went  into  the  long 
drawing-room,  where  she  might  relieve  her  restlessness  by 
walking  up  and  down,  and  catch  -the  sound  of  JernuTi's 
entrance  into  Harold's  room,  which  was  close  by.  Here 
she  moved  to  and  fro  amongst  the  rose-colored  satin  of 
cJiairs  and  curtains — the  great  story  of  this  world  reduced 
for  her  to  the  little  tale  of  her  own  existence — dull  ob- 
scurity everywhere,  except  where  the  keen  light  fell  on  the 
narrow  track  of  her  own  lot,  wide  only  for  a  woman's 
anguish.  At  last  she  heard  the  expected  ring  and  foot- 
step, and  the  opening  and  closing  door.  Unable  to  walk 
about  any  longer,  she  sank  into  a  large  cushioned  chair, 


\ 


THE    RADICAL.  303 

helpless  and  prayerless.  She  was  not  thinking  of  God's 
anger  or  mercy,  but  of  her  son's.  She  was  thinking  of 
what  might  be  brought,  not  by  death,  but  by  life. 


CHAPTER    XXXV. 


M.  Check  to  your  queen '. 

N.  Nay,  your  own  king  Is  bare, 

And  moving  so,  you  give  yourself  checkmate. 

When  Jermyn  entered  the  room,  Harold,  who  was 
seated  at  his  library  table  examining  papers,  with  his  back 
toward  the  light  and  his  face  toward  the  door,  moved  his 
head  coldly.  Jermyn  said  an  ungracious  "  Good-morn- 
ing " — as  little  as  possible  like  a  salutation  to  one  who 
might  regard  himself  as  a  patron.  On  the  attorney's 
handsome  face  tliere  was  a  black  cloud  of  defiant  deter- 
mination, slightly  startling  to  Harold,  who  had  expected 
tO  feel  that  the  overpowering  weight  of  temper  in  the 
interview  was  on  his  own  side.  Nobody  was  ever  prepared 
beforehand  for  this  expression  of  Jermyn's  face,  which 
seemed  as  strongly  contrasted  with  the  cold  impenetrable- 
ness  Avhich  he  preserved  under  the  ordinary  annoyances  of 
business  as  with  the  bland  radiance  of  his  lighter  moments. 

Harold  himself  did  not  look  amiable  just  then,  but  his 
anger  was  of  the  sort  that  seeks  a  vent  without  waiting 
to  give  a  fatal  blow;  it  was  that  of  a  nature  more  subtly 
mixed  than  Jermyn's — less  animally  forcible,  less  unwav- 
ering in  selfishness,  and  with  more  of  high-bred  pride. 
He  looked  at  Jerm3'n  with  increased  disgust  and  secret 
wonder. 

"■  Sit  down,"  he  said  curtly. 

Jermyn  seated  himself  in  silence,  opened  his  great-coat, 
and  took  some  papers  from  a  side-pocket. 

"I  have  written  to  Makepeace,"  said  Harold,  "to  tell 
him  to  take  the  entire  management  of  the  election  expenses. 
So  you  will  transmit  your  accounts  to  him." 

"Very  well.  I  am  come  this  morning  on  other  busi- 
ness." 

"If  it's  about  the  riot  and  the  prisoners,  I  have  only  to 
say  that  I  shall  enter  into  no  plans.  If  I  am  called  on,  I 
shall   say   what  I  know   about   that  young  fellow   Felix 


304  FELIX    HOLT, 

Holt.  People  may  prove  what  they  can  about  Johnson's 
damnable  tricks,  or  yours  either/' 

"I  am  not  come  to  speak  about  the  riot.  I  agree  with 
you  in  thinking  that  quite  a  subordinate  subject."  (When 
Jermyn  had  the  black  cloud  over  his  face,  he  never  hesi- 
tated or  drawled,  and  made  no  Latin  quotations.) 

''Be  so  good,  then,  as  to  open  your  business  at  once," 
said  Harold,  in  a  tone  of  imperious  indifference. 

"  That  is  precisely  what  I  wish  to  do.  I  have  here  infor- 
mation from  a  London  correspondent  that  you  are  about  to 
file  a  bill  against  me  in  Chancery."  Jerm.yn,  as  he  spoke, 
laid  his  hand  on  the  papers  before  him,  and  looked  straight 
at  Harold. 

"In  that  case,  the  question  for  you  is,  how  far  your 
conduct  as  the  family  solicitor  will  bear  investigation. 
But  it  is  a  question  which  you  will  consider  quite  apart 
from  me." 

"Doubtless.  But  prior  to  that  there  is  a  question  which 
we  must  consider  together." 

The  tone  in  which  Jermyn  said  this  gave  an  unpleas- 
ant shock  to  Harold's  sense  of  mastery.  Was  it  possible 
that  he  should  have  the  weapon  wrenched  out  of  his 
hand? 

"I  shall  know  what  to  think  of  that,"  he  replied,  as 
haughty  as  ever,  "when  you  have  stated  what  the  ques- 
tion is." 

"Simply,  whether  you  will  choose  to  retain  the  family 
estates,  or  lay  yourself  open  to  be  forthwith  legally 
deprived  of  them." 

"I  presume  you  refer  to  some  underhand  scheme  of 
your  own,  on  a  par  with  the  annuities  you  have  drained  us 
by  in  the  name  of  Johnson,"  said  Harold,  feeling  a  new 
movement  of  anger.  "If  so,  you  had  better  state  your 
scheme  to  my  lawyers,  Dymock  and  Halliwell." 

"No.  I  think  you  will  approve  of  my  stating  in  your 
own  ear  first  of  all,  that  it  depends  on  my  will  whether 
you  remain  an  important  landed  proprietor  in  North 
Loamshire,  or  whether  you  retire  from  the  country 
with  the  remainder  of  the  fortune  you  have  acquired  in 
trade." 

Jermyn  paused,  as  if  to  leave  time  for  this  morsel  to  be 
tasted. 

"What  do  you  mean?"  said  Harold,  sharply. 

"Not  any  scheme  of  mine;  but  a  state  of  the  facts 
resulting  from  the  settlement  of  the  estate  made  iu  1729: 


THE   RADICAL.  305 

a  state  of  the  facts  which  renders  your  father's  title  and 
your  own  title  to  the  family  estates  utterly  worthless  as 
soon  as  the  true  claimant  is  made  aware  of  his  right." 

''  And  you  intend  to  inform  him?" 

"  That  depends.  I  am  the  only  person  who  has  the 
requisite  knowledge.  It  rests  with  you  to  decide  whether 
I  shall  use  that  knowledge  against  you;  or  whether  I  shall 
use  it  in  your  favor  by  putting  an  end  to  the  evidence  that 
would  serve  to  oust  you  in  spite  of  your  '  robust  title  of 
occupancy.'  " 

Jermyn  paused  again.  He  had  been  speaking  slowly, 
but  without  the  least  hesitation,  and  with  a  bitter  definite- 
ness  of  enunciation.  There  was  a  moment  or  two  before 
Harold  answered,  and  then  he  said  abruptly — 

"I  don't  believe  you." 

"  I  thought  you  were  more  shrewd/'  said  Jermyn,  with 
a  touch  of  scorn.  "I  tliought  you  understood  that  I  had 
had  too  much  experience  to  waste  my  time  in  telling  fables 
to  persuade  a  man  who  has  put  himself  into  the  attitude  of 
my  deadly  enemy." 

"Well,  then,  say  at  once  what  your  proofs  are,"  said 
Harold,  shaking  in  spite  of  himself,  and  getting  nervous. 

"I  have  no  inclination  to  be  lengthy.  It  is  not  more 
than  a  few  weeks  since  I  ascertained  that  there  is  in  exist- 
ence an  heir  of  the  ByclifFes,  the  old  adversaries  of  your 
family.  More  curiously,  it  is  only  a  few  days  ago — in  fact, 
only  sijice  the  day  of  the  riot — that  the  Byclifi'e  claim  has 
become  valid,  and  that  the  right  of  remainder  accrues  to 
the  heir  in  question." 

"And  how,  jjray?"  said  Harold,  rising  from  his  chair, 
and  making  a  turn  in  the  room,  with  his  hands  thrust  in 
his  pockets.  Jeroiyn  rose  too,  and  stood  near  the  hearth, 
facing  Harold,  as  he  moved  to  and  fro. 

"  By  the  death  of  an  old  fellow  who  got  drunk  and  was 
trampled  to  death  in  the  riot.  He  was  the  last  of  that 
Thomas  Transome's  line,  by  the  purchase  of  whose  inter- 
est your  family  got  its  title  to  the  estate.  Your  title  died 
with  him.  It  was  sup})osed  that  the  line  had  become 
extinct  before — and  on  that  supposition  the  old  Bycliffes 
founded  their  claim.  But  I  hunted  up  this  man  just  about 
the  time  the  last  suit  was  closed.  His  death  would  have 
been  of  no  consequence  to  you  if  there  had  not  been  a 
Bycliffe  in  existence;  but  I  happen  to  know  that  there  is, 
and  that  the  fact  can  be  legally  proved." 

For  a  minute  or  two  Harold  did  not  speak,  but  con- 
20 


306  FELIX   HOLT, 

tinned  to  pace  the  room,  while  Jermyn  kept  his  position, 
hoh.ling  his  hands  behind  him.  At  last  Harold  said,  from 
the  other  end  of  the  room,  speaking  in  a  scornful  tone  — 

•'That  sonnds  alarming.  But  i*:  is  not  to  be  proved 
simply  by  your  statement." 

"  Clearly.  I  have  here  a  docnment,  with  a  copy  which 
will  back  my  statement.  It  is  the  opinion  given  on  the 
case  more  tlian  twenty  years  ago,  and  it  bears  the  signa- 
ture of  the  Attorney-General  and  the  first  conveyancer  of 
the  day.  *' 

Jermyn  took  np  the  papers  he  had  laid  on  the  table, 
opening  them  slowly  and  coolly  as  he  went  on  speaking, 
and  as  Harold  advanced  toward  him. 

"Yon  may  suppose  that  we  spared  no  pains  to  ascertain 
the  state  of  the  title  in  the  last  suit  against  Maurice 
Christian  Bycliffe,  which  threatened  to  be  a  hard  run. 
Tliis  document  is  the  result  of  a  consultation;  it  gives  an 
opinion  which  must  be  taken  as  a  final  authority.  You 
may  cast  your  eyes  over  that,  if  you  please;  I  will  wait 
your  time.  Or  you  may  read  the  snmming-up  here," 
Jermyn  ended,  holding  out  one  of  the  papers  to  Harold, 
and  pointing  to  a  final  passage. 

Harold  took  the  j)aper,  with  a  slight  gesture  of  impa- 
tience. He  did  not  choose  to  obey  Jermyn's  indication, 
and  confine  himself  to  the  summing-up.  He  ran  through 
the  document.  But  in  truth  he  was  too  much  excited 
really  to  follow  the  details,  and  was  rather  acting  than 
reading,  till  at  length  he  threw  himself  into  his  chair  and 
consented  to  bend  his  attention  on  the  passage  to  which 
Jermyn  had  pointed.  The  attorney  watched  him  as  he 
read  and  twice  re-read: — 

To  sum  up we  are  of  opinion  that  the  title  of  the  present  pos- 
sessors of  the  Transome  estates  can  be  strictly  proved  to  rest  solely 
upon  a  base  fee  created  under  the  original  settlement  of  1729,  and  to 
be  good  so  long  only  as  issue  exists  of  the  tenant  in  tail  by  whom  that 
base  fee  was  created.  We  feel  satisfied  by  the  evidence  that  such 
issne  exists  in  the  person  of  Thomas  Transome,  otherwise  Trounsem, 
of  Littleshaw.  But  upon  his  de(  ease  without  issue  we  are  of  opinion 
that  the  right  in  remainder  of  the  Byclifl'e  family  will  arise,  which 
right  would  not  be  barred  by  any  statute  of  limitation. 

\\  hen  HarokVs  eyes  were  on  the  signatures  to  this  doc- 
ument for  the  third  time,  Jermyn  said — 

''  As  it  turned  out,  the  case  being  closed  by  the  death  of 
the  claimant,  we  had  no  occasion  for  producing  Thomas 


1 


THE    EADICAL.  307 

Transome,  who  was  the  old  fellow  I  tell  you  of.  The 
inquiries  about  bini  set  him  agog,  and  after  they  were 
dropped  he  came  into  this  neigliborhood,  thinking  there 
was  something  fine  in  store  for  him.  Here,  if  you  like  to 
take  it,  is  a  memorandum  about  him.  I  repeat  that  lie 
died  in  the  rjot.  The  proof  is  ready.  And  I  repeat,  that, 
to  my  knowledge,  and  mine  only,  there  is  a  Bycliffe  in 
existence;  and  that  I  know  how  the  proof  can  be  made 
out." 

Harold  rose  from  his  chair  again,  and  again  paced  the 
room.     He  was  not  prepared  with  any  defiance. 

''  And  where  is  he — this  Bycliffe?"  he  said  at  last,  stop- 
ping in  his  walk,  and  facing  round  toward  Jermyn. 

"  I  decline  to  say  more  till  you  promise  to  suspend  pro- 
ceedings  against  me." 

Harold  turned  again,  and  looked   out  of  the  window, 
Avithout  speaking,  for  a  moment  or  two.     It  was  impossiblp 
that  there  should  not  be  a  conflict  within  him,  and  at  pres 
ent  it  was  a  very  confused  one.     At  last  he  said — 

"This  person  is  in  ignorance  of  his  claim?" 

"Yes." 

"Has  been  brought  up  in  an  inferior  station?" 

"  Yes,"  said  Jermyn,  keen  cnougli  to  guess  part  of  what 
was  going  on  in  Harold's  mind.  "  There  is  no  harm  in 
leaving  him  in  ignorance.  The  question  is  a  purely  legal 
one.  x\nd,  as  I  said  before,  the  complete  knowledge  of 
the  case,  as  one  of  evidence,  lies  exclusively  with  me.  I 
can  nullify  the  evidence,  or  I  can  make  it  tell  with  cer- 
tainty against  you.     The  choice  lies  with  you." 

"i  must  have  time  to  think  of  this,"  said  Harold, 
conscious  of  a  terrible  pressure. 

"I  can  give  you  no  time  unless  you  promise  me  to 
suspend  proceedings." 

"And  then,  when  I  ask  you,  you  will  lay  the  details 
before  me?" 

"  Not  without  a  thorough  understanding  beforehand. 
If  I  engage  not  to  use  my  knowledge  against  you,  you 
must  engage  in  writing  that  on  being  satisfied  bv  the  de 
tails,  you  will  cancel  all  hostile  proceedings  against  me, 
and  will  not  institute  fresh  ones  on  the  strength  of  any 
occurrences  now  past." 

"AYcll,  I  must  have  time,"  said  Harold,  more  than 
ever  inclined  to  thrash  the  attorney,  but  feeling  bound 
hand  and  foot  with  knots  that  he  was  not  sure  he  could 
ever  unfasten. 


308  FELIX   HOLT, 


a  1 


That  is  to  say,"  said  -Jermyn,  with  his  black-browed 
persistence,  ^'you  will  write  to  susjsend  proceedings." 

Again  Harold  paused.  He  was  more  than  ever  exas- 
perated, but  he  was  threatened,  mortified,  and  confounded 
by  the  necessity  for  an  immediate  decision  between  alter- 
natives almost  equally  hateful  to  him.  It  was  with  diffi- 
culty that  he  could  prevail  on  himself  to  speak  any 
conclusive  words.  He  walked  as  far  as  he  could  from 
Jermyn — to  the  other  end  of  the  room — then  walked  back 
to  his  chair  and  threw  himself  into  it.  At  last  he  said, 
without  looking  at  Jermyn,  "'I  agree — I  must  have  time.*' 

"Very  well.     It  is  a  bargain." 

"  No  further  than  this,"  said  Harold,  hastil}^,  flashing  a 
look  at  Jermyn — "no  further  than  this,  that  I  require 
time,  and  therefore  I  give  it  to  yon." 

"  Of  course.  You  require  time  to  consider  whether  the 
pleasure  of  trying  to  ruin  me — me  to  whom  you  are  really 
indebted — is  worth  the  loss  of  the  Transome  estates.  1 
shall  wish  you  good-morning." 

Harold  did  not  speak  to  him  or  look  at  him  again,  and 
Jermyn  walked  out  of  the  room.  As  he  appeared  outside 
the  door  and  closed  it  behind  him,  Mrs.  Transome  showed 
her  white  face  at  another  door  which  opened  on  a  level 
with  Harold's  in  such  a  way  that  it  was  just  possible  for 
Jermyn  not  to  see  her.  He. availed  himself  of  tliat  possi- 
bility, and  walked  straight  across  the  hall,  where  there 
was  no  servant  in  attendance  to  let  him  out,  as  if  he 
believed  that  no  one  was  looking  at  him  who  could  expect 
recognition.  He  did  not  Avant  to  speak  to  Mrs.  Transome 
at  present;  he  had  nothing  to  ask  from  her,  and  one 
disagreeable  interview  had  been  enough  for  him  this 
morning. 

She  was  convinced  tliat  lie  had  avoided  her,  and  she 
was  too  proud  to  arrest  him.  She  was  as  insignificant 
now  in  his  eyes  as  in  her  son's.  "  Men  have  no  memories 
in  their  hearts,"  she  said  to  herself,  bitterly.  And  then 
turning  into  her  sitting-room  she  heard  the  voices  of  Mr. 
Transome  and  little  Harry  at  play  together.  She  would 
have  given  a  great  deal  at  this  moment  if  lier  feeble  hus- 
band had  not  ahvays  lived  in  dread  of  her  temper  and  her 
tyranny,  so  that  he  might  have  been  fond  of  her  now. 
She  felt  herself  loveless;  if  she  was  important  to  any  one, 
it  was  only  to  her  old  waiting-woman  Denner. 


THE   RADICAL.  309 


CHAPTEE  XXXVI. 

Are  these  things  then  necessities? 
Then  let  us  meet  them  like  necessities. 

Shakespeare:  Henry  FT. 

See  now  the  \-irtue  living'  in  a  word  1 
Hobson  will  think  of  swearing-  it  was  noon 
When  he  saw  Dobson  at  the  May-day  lair. 
To  prove  poor  Dobson  did  not  i-ob  the  mail. 
'Tis  neighborly  to  save  a  neighbor's  neck  : 
What  harm  in  lying  when  you  mean  no  harm? 
But  say  'tis  perjury,  then  Hobson  quakes  — 
He'll  none  of  pei'jury. 

Thus  words  embalm 
The  conscience  of  mankind ;  and  Roman  laws 
Bring  still  a  conscience  to  poor  Hobson's  aid. 

Few  men  would  have  felt  otherAvise  than  Harold  Tran- 
some  felt,  if,  having  a  reversion  tantamount  to  possession 
of  a  fine  estate,  carrying  an  association  with  an  old  name 
and  considerable  social  importance,  they  were  suddenly 
informed  that  there  was  a  person  who  had  a  legal  right  to 
deprive  them  of  these  advantages ;  that  person's  right 
having  never  been  contemplated  by  any  one  as  more  than 
a  chance,  and  being  quite  unknown  to  himself.  In  ordi- 
nary cases  a  shorter  possession  than  Harold's  family  had 
enjoyed  was  allowed  by  the  law  to  constitute  an  indefeasible 
right;  and  if  in  rare  and  peculiar  instances  the  law  left 
the  possessor  of  a  long  inheritance  exposed  to  deprivation 
as  the  consequence  of  old  obscure  transactions,  the  moral 
reasons  for  giving  legal  validity  to  the  title  of  long  occu- 
pancy were  not  the  less  strong.  Nobody  would  have  said 
that  Harold  was  bound  to  hunt  out  this  alleged  remainder- 
man and  urge  his  rights  upon  him;  on  the  contrary,  all 
the  world  would  have  laughed  at  such  conduct,  and  he 
would  have  been  thought  an  interesting  patient  for  a  mad- 
doctor.  The  unconscious  remainder-man  was  probably 
much  better  off,  left  in  his  original  station:  Harold  would 
not  have  been  called  upon  to  consider  his  existence,  if  it 
had  not  been  presented  to  him  in  the  shape  of  a  threat 
from  one  who  had  power  to  execute  the  threat. 

In  fact,  what  he  would  have  done  had  the  circumstances 
been  different,  was  much  clearer  than  what  he  should 
choose  to  do  or  feel  himself  compelled  to  do  in  the  actual 
crisis.  He  would  not  have  been  disgraced  if,  on  a  valid 
claim  being  urged,  he  had  got  his  lawyers  to  fight  it  out 
for  him  on  the  chance  of  eluding  the  claim  by  some  adroit 
technical  management.     Nobody  off  the   stage  could  be 


310  FELIX    HOLT, 

I 

sentimental  about  these  things,  or  pretend  to  shed  tears  of 
joy  because  an  estate  was  lianded  over  from  a  gentleman  to 
a  mendicant  sailor  with  a  wooden  leg.  And  this  chance 
remainder-man  was  perhaps  some  such  specimen  of  inherit- 
ance as  the  drunken  fellow  killed  in  the  riot.  All  the 
world  would  think  the  actual  Transomes  in  the  right  to 
contest  any  adverse  claim  to  the  utmost.  But  then — it  was 
not  certain  that  they  would  win  in  the  contest;  and  not 
winning,  they  would  incur  other  loss  besides  that  of  the 
estate.  There  had  been  a  little  too  much  of  such  loss 
already. 

But  why,  if  it  were  not  wrong  to  contest  the  claim, 
should  he  feel  the  most  uncomfortable  scruples  about  rob- 
bing the  claim  of  its  sting  by  getting  rid  of  its  evidence? 
It  was  a  mortal  disappointment — it  was  a  sacrifice  of 
indemnification — to  abstain  from  punishing  Jermyn.  But 
even  if  he  brought  his  mind  to  contemplate  that  as  the 
wiser  course,  he  still  shrank  from  what  looked  like  com- 
plicity with  Jermyn;  he  still  shrank  from  the  secret  nulli- 
fication of  a  just  legal  claim.  If  be  had  only  known  the 
details,  if  he  had  known  who  this  alleged  heir  v/as,  he 
might  have  seen  his  w^ay  to  some  course  that  would  not 
have  grated  on  his  sense  of  honor  and  dignity.  But  Jer- 
myn had  been  too  acute  to  let  Harold  know  this:  he  had 
even  carefully  kept  to  the  masculine  pronoun.  And  he 
believed  that  there  was  no  one  besides  himself  who  would 
or  could  make  Harold  any  wiser.  He  went  home  per- 
suaded that  between  this  interview  and  the  next  which 
they  would  have  together,  Harold  would  be  left  to  an 
inward  debate,  founded  entirely  on  the  information  he 
himself  had  given.  And  he  had  not  much  doubt  that  the 
result  would  be  what  he  desired.  Harold  was  no  fool: 
there  were  many  good  things  he  liked  better  in  life  than 
an  irrational  vindictiveness. 

And  it  did  happen  that,  after  writing  to  London  in  ful- 
fillment of  his  pledge,  Harold  spent  many  hours  over  that 
inward  debate,  which  was  not  very  different  from  what 
Jermyn  imagined.  He  took  it  everywhere  with  him  on 
foot  and  on  horseback,  and  it  was  his  companion  through 
a  great  deal  of  the  night.  His  nature  was  not  of  a  kind 
given  to  internal  conflict,  and  he  had  never  before  been 
long  undecided  and  puzzled.  This  unaccustomed  state 
of  mind  Avas  so  painfully  irksome  to  him — he  rebelled  so 
impatiently  against  the  oppression  of  circumstances  in 
which  his  quick  temperament  and  habitual  decision  could 


1 


THE    RADICAL.  311 

not  help  him — that  it  added  tenfold  to  his  hatred  of  Jer- 
myn,  who  was  the  canse  of  it.  And  thus,  as  the  tempta- 
tion to  avoid  all  risk  of  losing  the  estate  grew  and  grew 
till  scruples  looked  minute  by  the  side  of  it,  the  difficulty 
of  bringing  himself  to  make  a  compact  with  Jermyn 
seemed  more  and  more  insurmountable. 

But  we  have  seen  that  the  attorney  was  much  too  confi- 
dent in  his  calculations.  And  while  Harold  was  being 
gulled  by  his  subjection  to  Jermyn's  knowledge,  independ- 
ent information  was  on  its  way  to  him.  The  messenger 
was  Christian,  who,  after  as  complete  a  survey  of  proba- 
bilities as  he  was  capable  of,  had  come  to  the  conclusion 
that  the  most  profitable  investment  he  could  make  of  his 
j)eculiar  experience  and  testimony  in  relation  to  Bycliffe 
and  BycliftVs  daugliter,  was  to  ^^lace  them  at  the  disposal 
of  Harold  Transonic.  He  was  afraid  of  Jermyn;  he 
utterly  distrusted  Johnson;  but  he  thought  he  was  secure 
in  relying  on  Harold  Transome^s  care  for  his  own  interest; 
and  he  preferred  above  all  issues  the  prosj3ect  of  forthwith 
leaving  the  country  with  a  sum  that  at  least  for  a  good 
while  would  put  him  at  his  ease. 

When,  only  three  mornings  after  the  interview  with 
Jermyn,  Dominic  opened  the  door  of  Harold's  sitting- 
room,  and  said  that  '•'  Meester  Chreestian,"  Mr.  Philip 
Debarry's  courier  and  an  acquaintance  of  his  own  at 
Naples,  requested  to  be  admitted  on  business  of  impor- 
tance, Harold's  immediate  thought  was  that  the  business 
referred  to  the  so-called  political  affairs  which  were  just 
now  his  chief  association  with  the  name  of  Debarry, 
though  it  seemed  an  oddness  requiring  explanation,  that 
a  servant  should  be  personally  an  intermediary.  He 
assented,  expecting  something  rather  disagreeable  than 
otherwise. 

Christian  wore  this  morning  those  perfect  manners  of  a 
subordinate  who  is  not  servile,  which,  he  always  adopted 
toward  his  unquestionable  superiors.  Mr.  Debarry,  who 
preferred  having  some  one  about  him  with  as  little  resem- 
blance as  possible  to  a  regular  servant,  had  a  singular 
liking  for  the  adroit,  quiet-mannered  Christian,  and  Avould 
have  been  amazed  to  see  the  insolent  assumption  he  Avas 
capable  of  in  the  presence  of  people  like  Mr.  Lyon,  who 
were  of  no  account  in  society.  Christian  had  that  sort  of 
cleverness  which  is  said  to  '■'know  the  world" — that  is 
to  say,  he  knew  the  price-current  of  most  things. 

Aware  that  he  was  looked  at  as  a  messenger  while  he 


312  FELIX  HOLT, 

remained  standing  near  the  door  with  his  hat  in  his  hand, 
he  said,  with  respectful  ease — 

*'  Yon  will  probably  be  surprised,  sir,  at  my  coming  to 
speak  to  you  on  my  own  account;  and,  in  fact,  I  could 
not  have  thought  of  doing  so  if  my  business  did  not 
happen  to  be  something  of  more  imjjortance  to  you  than 
to  any  one  else." 

"You  don't  come  from  Mr.  Debarry,  then?"  said  Harold, 
with  some  suri^rise. 

"No,  sir.  My  business  is  a  secret;  and,  if  you  please, 
must  remain  so." 

"It  is  a  pledge  you  are  demanding  from  me?"  said 
Harold,  rather  suspiciously,  having  no  ground  for  confi- 
dence in  a  man  of  Christian's  position. 

"Yes,  sir;  I  am  obliged  to  ask  no  less  than  that  you 
will  23ledge  yourself  not  to  take  Mr.  Jermyn  into  confi- 
dence concerning  what  passes  between  us." 

"With  all  my  heart,"  said  Harold,  something  like  a 
gleam  passing  over  his  face.  His  circulation  had  become 
more  rapid.     ' '  But  what  have  you  had  to  do  with  Jermyn ?  " 

"He  has  not  mentioned  me  to  you  then  —  has  he,  sir?" 

"No;  certainly  not — never." 

Christian  thought,  "Aha,  Mr.  Jermyn  I  you  are  keeping 
the  secret  well,  are  yon?"     He  said,  aloud — 

"Then  Mr.  Jermyn  has  never  mentioned  to  you,  sir, 
what  I  believe  he  is  aware  of  —  that  there  is  danger  of  a 
new  suit  being  raised  against  you  on  the  part  of  a  Bycliffe, 
to  get  the  estate?" 

"Ah!"  said  Harold,  starting  up,  and  placing  himself 
with  his  back  against  the  mantelpiece.  He  was  electrified 
by  surprise  at  the  quarter  from  which  this  information  was 
coming.  Any  fresh  ala-rm  was  counteracted  by  the  flash- 
ing thought  that  he  might  be  enabled  to  act  independ- 
ently of  Jermyn;  and  in  the  rush  of  feelings  he  could 
utter  no  more  than. an  interjection.  Christian  concluded 
that  Harold  had  had  no  previous  hint. 

"It  is  this  fact,  sir,  that  I  came  to  tell  you  of." 

"From  some  other  motive  than  kindness  to  me,  I  pre- 
sume," said  Harold,  with  a  slight  approach  to  a  smile, 

"Certainly,"  said  Christian,  as  quietly  as  if  he  had  been 
stating  yesterday's  weather.  "I  should  not  have  the  folly 
to  use  any  alfectation  with  you,  Mr.  Transome.  I  lost 
considerable  property  early  in  life,  and  am  now  in  the 
receipt  of  a  salary  simply.  In  the  affair  I  have  just  men- 
tioned to  you  I  can  give  evidence  which  will  turn  the  scale 


THE    RADICAL.  313 

against  you.     I  have  no  wish  to  do  so,  if  you  will  make  it 
worth  my  while  to  leave  the  country." 

Harold  listened  as  if  he  had  been  a  legendary  hero, 
selected  for  peculiar  solicitation  by  the  Evil  One.  Here 
was  temptation  in  a  more  alluring  form  than  before, 
because  it  was  sweetened  by  the  prospect  of  eluding 
Jerinyn.  But  the  desire  to  gain  time  served  all  the  pur- 
poses of  caution  and  resistance,  and  his  indifference  to  the 
speaker  in  this  case  helped  him  to  preserve  perfect  self- 
command. 

"You  are  aware,"  he  said,  coolly,  '^that  silence  is  not  a 
commodity  worth  purchasing  unless  it  is  loaded.  There 
are  many  persons,  I  dare  say,  who  would  like  me  to  pay 
their  traveling  expenses  for  them.  But  they  might  hardly 
be  able  to  show  me  that  it  was  worth  my  while." 

"You  wish  me  to  state  what  I  know?" 

"AVell,  that  is  a  necessary  preliminai-y  to  any  further 
conversation." 

"I  think  you  will  see,  Mr.  Transonic,  that,  as  a  matter 
of  justice,  the  knowledge  I  can  give  is  worth  something, 
quite  apart  from  my  future  appearance  or  non-appearance 
as  a  Avitness.  I  must  take  care  of  my  own  interest,  and  if 
anything  should  hinder  you  from  choosing  to  satisfy  me 
for  taking  an  essential  witness  out  of  the  way,  I  must  at 
least  be  paid  for  bringing  you  the  information." 

"Can  you  tell  me  who  and  where  this  Bycliffe  is?" 

"lean." 

" And  give  me  a  notion  of  the  whole  affair?" 

"Yes;  I  have  talked  to  a  lawyer — not  Jermyn — who  is 
at  the  bottom  of  the  law  in  the  affair." 

"You  must  not  count  on  any  wish  of  mine  to  suppress 
evidence  or  remove  a  witness.  But  name  your  price  for 
the  information." 

"  In  that  case  I  must  be  paid  the  higher  for  my  informa- 
tion.    Say,  two  thousand  ]jounds." 

" Two  "thousand  devils!"  burst  out  Harold,  throwing 
himself  into  liis  chair  again,  and  turning  his  shoukler 
toward  Christian.  New  thoughts  crowded  upon  him. 
"This  fellow  may  want  to  decamp  for  some  reason  or 
other,"  he  said  to  himself.  "  More  people  besides  Jermyn 
know  about  his  evidence,  it  seems.  The  whole  thing  may 
look  black  for  me  if  it  comes  out.  I  shall  be  believed  to 
have  bribed  him  to  run  away,  whether  or  not."  Thus  the 
outside  conscience  came  in  aid  of  the  inner.  _ 

"  I  will  not  give  you  one  sixpence  for  your  information/' 


314  FELIX    HOLT, 

he  said,  resolutely,  "until  time  has  made  it  clear  that  you 
"do  not  intend  to  decamp,  but  will  be  forthcoming  when 
you  are  called  for.  On  those  terms  I  have  no  objection  to 
give  you  a  note,  specifying  that  after  the  fulfillment  of 
that  condition — that  is,  after  the  occurrence  of  a  suit,  or 
the  understanding  that  no  suit  is  to  occur — I  will  pay  you 
a  certain  sum  in  consideration  of  the  information  you  now 
give  me  ! " 

Christian  felt  himself  caught  in  a  vise.  In  the  fir&t  in- 
stance he  had  counted  confidently  on  Harold's  ready  seizure 
of  his  offer  to  disappear,  and  after  some  words  had  seemed 
to  cast  a  doubt  on  this  presupposition  he  had  inwardly 
determined  to  go  away,  whether  Harold  wished  it  or  not, 
if  he  could  get  a  sufficient  sum.  He  did  not  reply  imme- 
diately, and  Harold  waited  in  silence,  inwardly  anxious  to 
know  what  Christian  could  tell,  but  with  a  vision  at  present 
so  far  cleared  that  he  was  determined  not  to  risk  incurring 
the  imputation  of  having  anything  to  do  with  scoundrelism. 
We  are  very  much  indebted  to  such  a  linking  of  events  as 
makes  a  doubtful  action  look  wrong. 

Christian  was  reflecting  that  if  he  stayed  and  faced  some 
possible  inconveniences  of  being  known  publicly  as  Henry 
Scaddon  for  the  sake  of  what  he  might  get  from  Esther,  it 
would  at  least  be  wise  to  be  certain  of  some  money  from 
Harold  Transome,  since  he  turned  out  to  be  of  so  peculiar 
a  disposition  as  to  insist  on  a  punctilious  honesty  to  his 
own  disadvantage.  Did  he  think  of  making  a  bargain  with 
the  other  side?  If  so,  he  might  be  content  to  wait  for  the 
knowledge  till  it  came  in  some  other  way.  Christian  was 
beginning  to  be  afraid  lest  he  should  get  nothing  by  this 
clever  move  of  coming  to  Transome  Court.  At  last  he 
said — 

"  I  think,  sir,  two  thousand  would  not  be  an  unreason- 
able sum,  on  those  conditions." 

"'I  will  not  give  two  thousand. '' 

"  Allow  me  to  say,  sir,  you  must  consider  that  there  is 
no  one  whose  interest  it  is  to  tell  you  as  much  as  I  shall, 
even  if  they  could;  since  Mr.  Jermyn,  who  knows  it,  has 
not  thought  fit  to  tell  you.  There  may  be  use  you  don't 
think  of  in  getting  the  information  at  once." 

"AYell?" 

''I  think  a  gentleman  should  act  liberally  under  such 
circumstances." 

''  So  I  will." 

"  I  could  not  take  less  than  a  thousand  pounds.    It  really 


THE  RADICAL.  315 

would  not  be  worth  my  while.  If  Mr.  Jermyn  knew  I  gave 
you  the  information,  he  would  endeavor  to  injure  me." 

"  I  will  give  you  a  thousand/'  said  Harold,  immediately, 
for  Christian  had  unconsciously  touched  a  sure  spring. 
"  At  least,  I'll  give  you  a  note  to  the  effect  I  spoke  of." 

He  Avrote  as  he  had  promised,  and  gave  the  paper  to 
Christian. 

^•'Now,  don't  be  circuitous,"  said  Harold.  "You  seem 
to  have  a  business-like  gift  of  speech.  Who  and  where  is 
this  Bycliffe?" 

''You  will  be  surprised  to  hear,  sir,  that  she  is  supposed 
to  be  the  daughter  of  the  old  preacher,  Lyon,  in  Malthouse 
Yard." 

"  Good  God  I  How  can  that  be?  "  said  Harold.  At  once, 
the  first  occasion  on  which  he  had  seen  Esther  rose  in  his 
memory — the  little  dark  parlor — the  graceful  girl  in  blue, 
with  the  surprisingly  distinguished  manners  and  appear- 
ance. 

"  In  this  way.  Old  Lyon,  by  some  strange  means  or 
other,  married  Bycliffe's  widow  when  this  girl  was  a  baby. 
And  the  preacher  didn't  want  the  girl  to  know  that  he 
was  not  her  real  father:  he  told  me  that  himself.  But  she  is 
the  image  of  Bycliffe,  whom  I  knew  well — an  uncommonly 
fine  woman — steps  like  a  queen." 

"  I  have  seen  her,"  said  Harold,  more  than  ever  glad  to 
have  purchased  this  knowledge.     "  But  now,  go  on." 

Christian  proceeded  to  tell  all  he  knew,  including  his  con- 
versation with  Jermyn,  except  so  far  as  it  had  an  unpleas- 
ant relation  to  himself. 

"  Then,"  said  Harold,  as  the  details  seemed  to  have 
come  to  a  close,  "  you  believe  that  Miss  Lyon  and  lier  sup- 
jiosed  father  are  at  present  unaware  of  the  claims  that 
might  bo  urged  for  her  on  the  strength  of  her  birth?" 

"I  believe  so.  But  I  need  not  tell  you  that  where  the 
lawyers  are  on  the  scent  you  can  never  be  sure  of  anything 
long  together.  I  must  remind  you,  sir,  that  you  have 
]n-omised  to  protect  me  from  Mr.  Jermyn  by  keeping  my 
confidence." 

"Never  fear.  Depend  upon  it,  I  shall  betray  nothing 
to  Mr,  Jermyn." 

Christian  was  dismissed  with  a  "good-morning";  and 
while  he  cultivated  some  friendly  reminiscences  with  Dom- 
inic, Harold  sat  chewing  the  cud  of  his  new  knowledge, 
and  finding  it  not  altogether  so  bitter  as  he  had  expected. 

From   the  first,  after    his  interview  with  Jermyn,    the 


316  FELIX  HOLT, 

recoil  of  Harold's  mind  from  the  idea  of  strangling  a  legal 
light  threw  him  on  the  alternative  of  att^pting  a  com- 
promise. Some  middle  course  might  be  possible,  which 
would  be  a  less  evil  than  a  costly  lawsuit,  or  than  the  total 
renunciation  of  the  estates.  And  now  he  had  learned  that 
the  new  claimant  was  a  woman — a  young  woman,  brought 
up  under  circumstances  that  would  make  the  fourth  of  the 
Transome  property  seem  to  her  an  immense  fortune.  Both 
the  sex  and  the  social  condition  were  of  the  sort  that  lies 
open  to  many  softening  influences.  And  having  seen 
Esther,  it  was  inevitable  that,  amongst  the  various  issues, 
agreeable  and  disagreeable,  depicted  by  Harold's  imagina- 
tion, there  should  present  itself  a  possibility  that  would 
unite  the  two  claims — his  own,  which  he  felt  to  be  the 
rational,  and  Esther's,  which  apparently  was  the  legal  claim. 

Harold,  as  he  had  constantly  said  to  his  mother,  was 
"  not  a  marrying  man  ";  he  did  not  contemplate  bringing 
a  wife  to  Transome  Court  for  many  years  to  come,  if  at  all. 
Having  little  Harry  as  an  lieii',  he  ]3referred  freedom. 
Western  women  were  not  to  his  taste:  they  showed  a  tran- 
sition from  the  feebly  animal  to  the  thinking  being,  wJiich 
was  simply  troublesome.  Harold  preferred  a  slow-witted 
large-eyed  woman,  silent  and  affectionate,  with  a  load  of 
black  hair  vv-eighing  much  more  heavily  than  her  brains. 
He  had  seen  no  such  woman  in  England,  except  one  whom 
he  had  brought  with  him  from  the  East. 

Therefore  Harold  did  not  care  to  be  married  until  or 
unless  some  surprising  chance  pi-esented  itself;  and  now 
that  such  a  chance  had  occurred  to  suggest  marriage  to 
him,  he  would  not  admit  to  himself  that  he  contemplated 
marrying  Esther  as  a  plan;  he  was  only  obliged  to  see  that 
such  an  issue  was  not  inconceivable.  He  was  not  going  to 
take  any  step  expressly  directed  toward  that  end:  what  he 
had  made  up  his  mind  to,  as  the  course  most  satisfactory 
to  his  nature  under  present  urgencies,  was  to  behave  to 
Esther  with  a  frank  gentlemanliness,  which  must  win  her 
good -will,  and  incline  her  to  save  his  family  interest  as 
much  as  possible.  He  was  helped  to  this  determination  by 
the  pleasure  of  frustratino;  Jermvn's  contrivance  to  shield 
hmiself  from  punishment,  and  his  most  distinct  and  clieer- 
mg  prospect  was  that  within  a  very  short  space  of  time  he 
should  not  only  luive  effected  a  satisfactory  compromise 
with  Esther,  but  should  have  made  Jermyn  aware  by  a  very 
disagreeable  form  of  announcement,  that  Harold  Transome 
was  no  longer  afraid  of  him.     Jermyn  should  bite  the  dust. 


THE    EADICAL.  317 

At  the  end  of  these  meditations  he  felt  satisfied  with 
himself  and  light-hearted.  He  had  rejected  two  dishonest 
propositions,  and  he  was  going  to  do  something  that  seemed 
eminently  gracefnl.  But  he  needed  his  mother's  assist- 
ance, and  it  was  necessary  that  he  should  both  confide  in 
lier  and  persuade  her. 

Within  two  hours  after  Christian  left  him,  Harold 
begged  his  mother  to  come  into  his  private  room,  and 
tliere  he  told  her  the  strange  and  startling  story,  omit- 
ting, however,  any  particulars  Avhich  Avould  involve  the 
identification  of  Christian  as  his  informant.  Harold  felt 
that  his  engagement  demanded  his  reticence;  and  he  told 
his  mother  that  he  was  bound  to  conceal  the  source 
of  that  knowledge  which  he  had  got  independently  of 
Jermyn. 

Mrs.  Transome  said  little  in  the  course  of  the  story: 
she  made  no  exclamations,  but  she  listened  with  close 
attention,  and  asked  a  few  questions  so  much  to  the  point 
as  to  surprise  Harold,  When  he  shoAved  her  the  cojij  of 
the  legal  opinion  which  Jermyn  had  left  with  him,  she 
said  she  knew  it  very  well;  she  had  a  copy  herself.  The 
particulars  of  that  last  lawsuit  were  too  well  engraven  on 
her  mind:  it  happened  at  a  time  when  there  was  no  one 
to  supersede  her,  and  she  was  the  virtual  head  of  the 
family  affairs.  She  was  prepared  to  understand  how  the 
estate  might  be  in  danger;  but  nothing  had  prepared  her 
for  the  strange  details — for  the  way  in  which  the  new 
claimant  had  been  reared  and  brought  within  the  range 
of  converging  motives  that  had  led  to  this  revelation, 
least  of  all  for  the  part  Jermyn  had  come  to  play  in  the 
revelation.  Mrs.  Transome  saw  these  things  through  the 
medium  of  certain  dominant  emotions  that  made  them 
seem  like  a  long-ripening  retribution.  Harold  perceived 
that  she  was  painfully  agitated,  that  she  trembled,  and 
that  her  white  lips  would  not  readily  lend  themselves  to 
speech.  And  this  was  hardly  more  than  he  expected.  He 
had  not  liked  the  revelation  himself  when  it  had  first 
come  to  him. 

But  he  did  not  guess  what  it  was  in  his  narrative  which 
had  most  pierced  his  mother.  It  was  something  that 
made  the  threat  about  the  estate  only  a  secondary  alarm. 
Now,  for  the  first  time,  she  heard  of  the  intended  pro- 
ceedings against  Jermyn.  Harold  had  not  chosen  to  speak 
of  them  before;  but  having  at  last  called  his  mother  iuto 
consultation,  there  was  nothing  in  his  mind  to  hinder  him 


318  FELIX    HOLT, 

from  speaking  without  reserve  of  his  determination  to 
visit  on  the  attorney  his  shameful  maladministration  of 
the  family  affairs. 

Harold  went  through  the  whole  narrative  —  of  what  he 
called  Jermyn's  scheme  to  catch  him  in  a  vise,  and  his 
power  of  triumphantly  frustrating  that  scheme  —  in  his 
usual  rapid  way,  speaking  with  a  final  decisiveness  of 
tone:  and  his  niother  felt  that  if  she  urged  any  counter- 
consideration  at  all,  she  could  only  do  so  Avhen  he  had  no 
more  to  sav. 

"  Now,  what  I  want  you  to  do,  mother,  if  you  can  see 
this  matter  as  I  see  it,"  Harold  said  in  conclusion,  '''is  to 
go  with  me  to  call  on  this  girl  in  Malthouse  Yard.  I  will 
open  the  affair  to  her;  it  appears  she  is  not  likely  to  have 
been  informed  yet;  and  you  will  invite  her  to  visit  you 
here  at  once,  that  all  scandal,  all  hatching  of  law-mischief, 
may  be  avoided,  and  the  thing  may  be  brought  to  an  ami- 
cable conclusion." 

■  *'It  seems  almost  incredible  —  extraordinary — a  girl  in 
her  position,"  said  Mrs.  Transome,  with  difficulty.  Tt 
would  have  seemed  the  bitterest,  humiliating  penance  if 
another  sort  of  suffering  had  left  any  room  in  her  heart. 

"I  assure  you  she  is  a  lady;  I  saw  her  when  I  was 
canvassing,  and  was  amazed  at  the  time.  You  will  bo 
quite  struck  with  her.  It  is  no  indignity  for  you  to 
invite  her.'" 

'•'  Oh,"  said  Mrs.  Transome,  with  low-toned  bitterness, 
'^I  must  put  up  with  all  things  as  they  are  determined 
forme.     When  shall  we  go?" 

"  Well,"  said  Harold,  looking  at  his  watch,  "  it  is 
hardly  two  yet.  We  could  really  go  to-day,  when  you 
have  lunched.  It  is  better  to  lose  no  time.  I'll  order  the 
carriage." 

"  Stay,"  said  Mrs.  Transome,  making  a  desperate  effort. 
"There"  is  plenty  of  time.  I  shall  not  lunch.  I  have  a 
word  to  say." 

Harold  withdrew  his  hand  from  the  bell,  and  leaned 
against  the  mantelpiece  to  listen. 

"You  see  I  comply  with  your  wish  at  once,  Harold?" 

"  Yes,  mother,  Tm  much  obliged  to  you  for  making  no 
difficulties." 

"You  ought  to  listen  to  me  in  return." 

"Pray  go  on,"  said  Harold,  expecting  to  be  annoyed. 

"  What  is  the  good  of  having  these  Chancery  proceed- 
ings against  Jermyn?" 


THE    RADICAL.  319 

"Good?  This  good:  that  fellow  has  burdened  the 
estate  with  annuities  and  mortgages  to  the  extent  of  three 
thousand  a  year;  and  tiie  bulk  of  them,  I  am  certain,  he 
liolds  himself  under  the  name  of  another  man.  And  the 
advances  this  yearly  interest  represents,  have  not  been 
much  more  than  twenty  thousand.  Of  course,  Jie  has 
lioodwinked  you,  and  my  father  never  gave  attention  to 
these  things.  He  has  been  up  to  all  sorts  of  devil's  work 
with  the  deeds;  he  didn't  count  on  my  coming  back  from 
Smyrna  to  fill  poor  Durfey's  place.  He  shall  feel  the 
difference.  And  the  good  will  be,  that  I  shall  save  almost 
all  the  annuities  for  the  rest  of  my  father's  life,  which 
may  be  ten  years  or  more,  and  I  shall  get  back  some 
of  the  money,  and  I  shall  punish  a  scoundrel.  That  is 
the  good." 

"He  will  be  ruined." 

''That's  what  I  intend,"  said  Harold,  sharply. 

"  He  exerted  himself  a  great  deal  for  us  in  the  old  suits: 
every  one  said  he  had  wonderful  zeal  and  ability,"  said 
Mrs.  Transome,  getting  courage  and  warmth  as  she  went 
on.     Her  temper  was  rising. 

"  What  he  did,  he  did  for  his  own  sake,  you  may  depend 
on  that,"  said  Harold,  with  a  scornful  laugh. 

"There  were  very  painful  things  in  that  last  suit.  You 
seem  anxious  about  this  young  woman,  to  avoid  all  further 
scandal  and  contests  in  tlie  family.  Why  don't  you  Avisli 
to  do  it  in  this  case?  Jermyn  might  be  willing  to  arrange 
things  amicably — to  make  restitution  as  far  as  he  can — if 
he  has  done  anything  wrong." 

"  I  will  arrange  nothing  amicably  with  him,"  said  Harold, 
decisively.  "It  he  has  ever  done  anything  scandalous  as 
our  agent,  let  him  bear  the  infamy.  And  the  right  Avay 
to  throw  the  infamy  on  him  is  to  show  the  world  that 
he  has  robbed  us.  and  that  I  mean  to  punish  liim.  Why 
do  you  wish  to  shield  such  a  fellow,  mother?  It  has  been 
chiefly  through  him  that  you  have  had  to  lead  such  a 
tlirifty  miserable  life — you  »who  used  to  make  as  brilliant 
a  figure  as  a  woman  need  wish." 

Mrs.  Transome's  rising  temper  was  turned  into  a  horri- 
ble sensation,  as  painful  as  a  sudden  concussion  from 
something  hard  and  immovable  v/hen  we  have  struck  out 
with  our  fist,  intending  to  hit  something  warm,  soft,  and 
breathing  like  ourselves.  Poor  Mrs.  Transome's  strokes 
were  sent  jarring  back  on  her  by  a  hard  unalterable  past. 


320  FELIX   HOLT, 

She  did  not  speak  in  answer  to  Harold,  but  rose  from  the 
chair  as  if  she  gave  up  the  debate. 

''Women  are  frightened  at  everything,  I  know,"  said 
Harold,  kindly,  feeling  that  he  had  been  a  little  harsh 
after  his  mother's  compliance.  "And  you  have  been  used 
for  so  many  years  to  think  Jermyn  a  law  of  nature. 
Come,  mother,"  he  went  on,  looking  at  her  gently,  and 
resting  his  hands  on  her  shoulders,  "look  cheerful.  We 
shall  get  through  all  these  difficulties.  And  this  girl — I 
dare  say  she  will  be  quite  an  interesting  visitor  for  you. 
You  have  not  had  any  young  girl  about  you  for  a  long 
while.  Who  knows?  she  may  fall  deeply  in  love  with  me, 
and  I  may  be  obliged  to  marry  her." 

He  spoke  laughingly,  only  thinking  how  he  could  make 
his  mother  smile.  But  she  looked  at  him  seriously  and 
said,  "Do  you  mean  that,  Harold?" 

''Am  I  not  capable  of  making  a  conquest?  Not  too  fat 
yet — a  handsome,  well-rouuded  youth  of  thirty-four?" 

She  was  forced  to  look  straight  at  the  beaming  face, 
with  its  rich  dark  color,  just  bent  a  little  over  her.  Why 
could  she  not  be  happy  in  this  son  whose  future  she  had 
once  dreamed  of,  and  who  had  been  as  fortunate  as  she 
had  ever  hoped?  The  tears  came,  not  plenteously,  but 
making  her  dark  eyes  as  large  and  bright  as  youth  had 
once  made  them  without  tears. 

"There,  there!"  said  Harold,  coaxingly.  "Don't  be 
afraid.  You  shall  not  have  a  daughter-in-law  unless  she 
is  a  pearl.     Now  Ave  will  get  ready  to  go." 

In  half  an  hour  from  that  time  Mrs.  Transome  came 
down,  looking  majestic  in  sables  and  velvet,  ready  to  call 
on  "the  girl  in  Malthouse  Yard."  She  had  composed 
herself  to  go  through  this  task.  She  saw  there  was  noth- 
ing better  to  be  done.  After  the  resolutions  Harold  had 
taken,  some  sort  of  compromise  Avith  this  oddly-placed 
heiress  was  the  result  most  to  be  hoped  for;  if  the  com- 
promise turned  out  to  be  a  marriage — well,  she  liad  no 
reason  to  care  much:  she  was  already  powerless.  It 
remained  to  be  seen  what  this  girl  was. 

The  carriage  was  to  be  driven  round  the  back  way,  to 
avoid  too  much  observation.  But  the  late  election  affairs 
might  account  for  Mr.  Lyon's  receiving  a  visit  from  the 
unsuccessful  Radical  candidate. 


THE   EADICAL.  321 


CHAPTER  XXXYII. 

I  also  could  speak  as  je  do ;  if  your  soul  were  in  my  soul's  stead,  1 
could  heap  up  words  against  you,  and  shake  mine  head  at  you. — Book 
of  Joh. 

Ii^  the  interval  since  Esther  j)arted  with  Felix  Holt  on 
the  day  of  the  riot,  she  had  gone  through  so  much  emotion, 
and  had  already  had  so  strong  a  shock  of  surj)rise,  that 
she  was  prepared  to  receive  any  new  incident  of  an 
imwonted  kind  with  comjDarative  equanimity. 

When  ^Ir.  Lyon  had  got  home  again  from  his  preaching 
excursion,  Felix  was  already  on  his  way  to  Loamford  Jail. 
The  little  minister  was  terribly  shaken  by  the  news.  He 
saw  no  clear  explanation  of  Felix  Holt's  conduct;  for  the 
statements  Esther  had  heard  were  so  conflicting  that  she 
had  not  been  able  to  gather  distinctly  what  had  come  out 
in  the  examination  by  the  magistrates.  But  Mr.  Lyon  felt 
confident  that  Felix  Avas  innocent  of  any  wish  to  abet  a  riot 
or  the  infliction  of  injuries;  what  he  chiefly  feared  was  that 
in  the  fatal  encounter  with  Tucker  he  had  been  moved  by 
a  rash  temper,  not  sufficiently  guarded  against  by  a  pray- 
erful and  humble  spirit. 

"My  poor  young  friend  is  being  taught  with  mysterious 
severity  the  evil  of  a  too  confident  self-reliance,"  he  said 
to  Esther,  as  they  sat  oi^posite  to  each  other,  listening  and 
speaking  sadly. 

^•' You  will  go  and  see  him,  father ?'' 

"Verily  will  I.  But  I  must  straightway  go  and  see  that 
poor  afflicted  woman,  whose  soul  is  doubtless  whirled  about 
in  this  trouble  like  a  shapeless  and  unstable  thing  driven 
by  divided  winds."  Mr.  Lyon  rose  and  took  his  hat 
hastily,  ready  to  walk  out,  with  his  greatcoat  flying  open 
and  exposing  his  small  person  to  the  keen  air. 

"Stay,  father,  pray,  till  you  have  had  some  food,"  said 
Esther,  putting  her  hand  on  his  arm.  "You  look  quite 
weary  and  shattered." 

"  Child,  I  cannot  stay.  I  can  neither  eat  bread  nor 
drink  water  till  I  have  learned  more  about  this  young 
man's  deeds,  what  can  be  proved  and  what  cannot  be 
proved  against  him.  I  fear  he  has  none  to  stand  bv  him 
in  this  town,  for  even  by  the  friends  of  our  church  1  have 
been  ofttimes  rebuked  because  he  seemed  dear  to  me.    But, 

Esther,  mv  beloved  child " 

21 


322  FELIX    HOLT, 

Here  Mr.  Lyon  grasped  her  arm,  and  seemed  in  the  need 
of  sj)eech  to  forget  his  previous  haste.  "I  bear  in  mind 
this:  the  Lord  knoweth  them  that  are  His;  but  we — we 
are  left  to  judge  by  uncertain  signs,  that  so  Ave  may  learn 
to  exercise  hope  and  faith  toward  one  another;  and  in 
this  uncertainty  I  cling  with  awful  hojjo  to  those  whom 
the  world  loves  not  because  their  conscience,  albeit  mis- 
takenly, is  at  war  with  the  habits  of  the  world.  Onr  great 
faith,  my  Esther,  is  the  faith  of  martyrs:  I  will  not 
lightly  turn  away  from  any  man  who  endures  harshness 
because  he  will  not  lie;  nay,  though  I  would  not  Avantonly 
gras'p  at  ease  of  mind  through  an  arbitrary  choice  of 
doctrine,  I  cannot  but  believe  that  the  merits  of  the 
Divine  Sacrifice  are  wider  than  our  utmost  charity.  I 
once  believed  otherwise  —  but  not  now,  not  now." 

The  minister  paused,  and  seemed  to  be  abstractedly 
gazing  at  some  memory:  he  was  always  liable  to  be 
snatched  away  by  thoughts  from  the  pursuit  of  a  pur- 
pose which  had  seemed  pressing.  Esther  seized  the 
opportunity  and  prevailed  on  him  to  fortify  himself  with 
some  of  Lyddy's  porridge  before  he  went  out  on  his 
tiring  task  of  seeking  definite  trustworthy  knowledge 
frt)m  the  lips  of  various  witnesses,  beginning  with  that 
feminine  darkener  of  counsel,  poor  Mrs.  Holt. 

She,  regarding  all  her  trouble  about  Felix  in  the  light 
of  a  fulfillment  of  her  own  prophecies,  treated  the  sad 
history  with  a  preference  for  edification  above  accuracy, 
and  for  mystery  above  relevance,  worthy  of  a  commentator 
on  the  AjDocalypse.  She  insisted  chiefly,  not  on  the 
important  facts  that  Felix  had  sat  at  his  work  till  after 
eleven,  like  a  deaf  man,  had  rushed  out  in  surprise  and 
alarm,  had  come  back  to  report  with  satisfaction  that 
things  were  quiet,  and  iiad  asked  her  to  set  by  his  dinner 
for  him  —  facts  which  would  tell  as  evidence  that  Felix 
was  disconnected  with  any  project  of  disturbances,  and  was 
averse  to  them.  These  things  came  out  incidental^  in 
her  long  jolaint  to  the  minister;  but  what  Mrs.  Holt  felt 
it  essential  to  state  was,  that  long  before  Michaelmas  was 
turned,  sitting  in  her  chair,  she  had  said  to  Felix  that 
there  would  be  a  judgment  on  him  for  being  so  certain 
sure  about  the  Pills  and  the  Elixir. 

"And  now,  Mr.  Lyon,"  said  the  poor  woman,  who  had 
dressed  herself  in  a  gown  previously  cast  off,  a  front  all 
out  of  curl,  and  a  cap  with  no  starch  in  it,  while  she  held 
little  coughing  Job  on  her  knee,  —  "^'and  now  you  see  — 


THE   RADICAL.  823 

my  words  have  come  true  sooner  than  I  thought  they 
■would.  Felix  may  contradict  me  if  he  will;  but  there  he 
is  in  prison,  and  here  am  I,  with  nothing  in  the  world  to 
bless  myself  with  but  half-a-crown  a-week  as  I've  saved  by 
ray  own  scrajiing,  and  this  house  Fve  got  to  pay  rent  for. 
It^s  not  me  has  done  wrong,  Mr.  Lyon;  there's  nobody 
can  say  it  of  me  —  not  the  orphan  child  on  my  knee  is 
more  innicent  o'  riot  and  murder  and  anything  else  as  is 
bad.  But  Avhen  you've  got  a  son  so  masterful  and  stopping 
medicines  as  Providence  has  sent,  and  his  betters  liave 
been  taking  up  and  down  the  country  since  before  he  was 
a  baby,  it's  o'  no  use  being  good  here  below.  But  he  was 
a  baby,  Mr.  Lyon,  and  I  gave  him  the  breast,"  —  here 
poor  Mrs.  Holt's  motherly  love  overcame  her  expository 
eagerness,  and  she  fell  more  and  more  to  crying  as  she 
spoke  —  ''And  to  think  there's  folks  saying  now  as  he'll  be 
transported,  and  his  hair  shaved  off,  and  the  treadmill, 
and  "everything.     Oh,  dear  I" 

As  Mrs.  Holt  broke  off  into  sobbing,  little  Job  also, 
who  had  got  a  confused  yet  profound  sense  of  sorrow,  and 
of  Felix  being  hurt  and  gone  away,  set  up  a  little  wail  of 
wondering  misery. 

"Nay,  Mistress  Holt,"  said  the  minister,  soothingly, 
"enlarge  not  your  grief  by  more  than  warrantable  grounds. 
I  have  good  hope  that  my  young  friend,  your  son,  will  be 
delivered  from  any  severe  consequences  beyond  the  death 
of  the  man  Tucker,  which  I  fear  will  ever  be  a  sore  burden 
on  his  memory.  I  feel  confident  that  a  jury  of  his  country- 
men will  discern  between  misfortune,  or  it  may  be  mis- 
judgment  and  an  evil  will,  and  that  he  will  be  acquitted  of 
any  grave  offense." 

"He  never  stole  anything  in  his  life,  Mr.  Lyon,"  said 
Mrs.  Holt,  reviving.  "Nobody  can  throw  it  in  my  face 
as  my  son  ran  away  with  money  like  the  young  man  at  the 
bank — though  he  looked  most  respectable,  and  far  dif- 
ferent on  a  Sunday  to  what  Felix  ever  did.  And  I  know 
it's  very  hard  fighting  with  constables;  but  they  say 
Tucker's  wife'll  be  a  deal  better  off  than  she  was  before, 
for  the  great  folks'll  pension  her,  and  she'll  be  put  on  all 
the  charities,  and  her  children  at  the  Free  School,  and 
everything.  Your  trouble's  easy  borne  when  everybody 
gives  it  a  lift  for  you;  and  if  judge  and  jury  wants  to  do 
right  by  Felix,  they'll  think  of  his  poor  mother,  with  the 
bread  took  out  of  her  mouth,  all  but  half-a-crown  a-week 
and  furniture — which,  to  be  sure,  is  most  excellent,  and  of 


324  FELIX   HOLT, 

my  OAvu  buying — and  got  to  keep  this  orphin  child  as  Felix 
himself  brought  on  me.  And  I  might  send  him  back  to 
his  old  grandfather  on  parish  pay,  but  Pm  not  that  woman, 
Mr,  Lyon;  I've  a  tender  heart.  And  here's  his  little  feet 
and  toes,  like  marbil;  do  but  look" — here  Mrs.  Holt  drew 
off  Job's  sock  and  shoe,  and  showed  a  well- washed  little 
foot — "and  you'll  perhaps  say  I  might  take  a  lodger;  but 
it's  easy  talking;  it  isn't  everybody  at  a  loose-end  wants  a 
parlor  and  a  bedroom;  and  if  anything  bad  happens  to 
Felix,  I  may  as  well  go  and  sit  in  the  pai-ish  Pound,  and 
nobody  to  buy  me  out;  for  it's  beyond  everything  how  the 
church  members  find  fault  with  my  son.  But  I  think 
they  might  leave  his  mother  to  find  fault;  for  queer  and 
masterful  he  might  be,  and  flying  in  the  face  of  the  very 
Scripture  about  the  physic,  but  he  was  most  clever  beyond 
anything — that  livitl  say — and  was  his  own  father's  lawful 
child,  and  me  his  mother,  that  was  Mary  Wall  thirty  years 
before  ever  I  married  his  father."  Here  Mrs.  Holt's  feel- 
ings again  became  too  much  for  her,  but  she  struggled  on 
to  say,  sobbingly,  ''And  if  they're  to  transport  him,  I 
should  like  to  go  to  the  prison  and  take  the  orphin  child; 
for  he  was  most  fond  of  having  him  on  his  lap,  and  said 
he'd  never  marry;  and  there  was  One  above'  overheard 
him,  for  he's  been  took  at  his  word." 

Mr,  Lyon  listened  with  low  groans,  and  then  tried  to 
comfort  her  by  saying  that  he  would  himself  go  to  Loam- 
ford  as  soon  as  possible,  and  would  give  his  soul  no  rest  till 
he  had  done  all  he  could  do  for  Felix. 

On  one  point  Mrs.  Holt's  plaint  tallied  with  his  own 
forebodings,  and  he  found  them  verified:  the  state  of 
feeling  in  Treby  among  the  Liberal  Dissenting  flock  was 
unfavorable  to  Felix.  None  who  had  observed  his  con- 
duct from  the  windows  saw  anything  tending  to  excuse 
him,  and  his  own  account  of  his  motives,  given  on  his 
examination,  was  spoken  of  with  head-shaking;  if  it  had 
not  been  for  his  habit  of  always  thinking  himself  wiser 
than  other  people,  he  would  never  have  entertained  such  a 
wild  scheme.  He  had  set  himself  up  for  something  ex- 
traordinary, and  had  spoken  ill  of  respectable  tradespeople. 
He  had  put  a  stop  to  the  making  of  saleable  drugs,  con- 
trary to  the  nature  of  buying  and  selling,  and  to  a  due 
reliance  on  what  Providence  miglit  effect  in  the  human 
inside  through  the  instrumentality  of  remedies  unsuitable 
to  the  stomach,  looked  at  it  in  a  merely  secular  light;  and 
the  result  was  what  miglit  have  been  expected.     He  had 


THE   RADICAL.  325 

Fjrought  his  mother  to  poverty,  and  himself  into  trouble. 
And  what  for?  He  had  done  no  good  to  '^the  cause";  if 
he  had  fought  about  Church-rates,  or  had  been  worsted  in 
some  struggle  in  which  he  was  distinctly  the  champion 
of  Dissent  and  Liberalism,  his  case  would  have  been  one 
for  gold,  silver,  and  copper  subscriptions,  in  order  to  pro- 
cure the  best  defense;  sermons  might  have  been  preached 
on  him,  and  his  name  might  have  floated  on  flags  from 
Newcastle  to  Dorchester.  But  there  seemed  to  be  no 
edification  in  what  had  befallen  Felix.  The  riot  at  Treby, 
"turn  it  which  way  you  would,"  as  Mr.  Muscat  observed, 
Avas  no  great  credit  to  Liberalism;  and  what  Mr.  Lyon 
had  to  testify  as  to  Felix  Holt's  conduct  in  tlie  matter  of 
the  Sproxton  men,  only  made  it  clear  that  the  defense  of 
Felix  was  the  accusation  of  his  party.  The  whole  affair, 
Mr.  Nuttwood  said,  was  dark  and  inscrutable,  and  seemed 
not  to  be  one  in  which  the  interference  of  God's  servants 
would  tend  to  give  the  glory  where  the  glory  was  due. 
That  a  candidate  for  whom  the  richer  church  members 
had  all  voted  should  have  his  name  associated  with  the 
encouragement  of  drunkenness,  riot,  and  plunder,  was  an 
occasion  for  the  enemy  to  blaspheme;  and  it  was  not  clear 
how  the  enemy's  mouth  would  be  stopped  by  exertions  in 
favor  of  a  rash  young  man,  whose  interference  had  made 
things  worse  instead  of  better.  Mr.  Lyon  was  warned 
lest  his  human  partialities  should  blind  him  to  the 
interests  of  truth:  it  was  God's  cause  that  was  endangered 
in  this  matter. 

The  little  minister's  soul  was  bruised;  he  himself  was 
keenly  alive  to  the  complication  of  public  and  private 
regards  in  this  affair,  and  suffered  a  good  deal  at  the 
thought  of  Tory  triumph  in  the  demonstration  that, 
excepting  the  attack  on  the  Seven  Stars,  which  called 
itself  a  AYhig  house,  all  damage  to  property  had  been 
borne  by  Tories.  He  cared  intensely  for  his  opinions, 
and  would  have  liked  events  to  speak  for  them  in  a  sort  of 
picture-writing  that  everybody  could  understand.  The 
enthusiasms  of  the  world  are  not  to  be  stimulated  by  a 
commentary  in  small  and  subtle  characters  which  alone 
can  tell  the  whole  truth;  and  the  picture-writing  in  Felix 
Holt's  troubles  was  of  an  entirely  puzzling  kind:  if  he 
were  a  martyr,  neither  side  wanted  to  claim  him.  Yet  the 
minister,  as  we  have  seen,  found  in  his  Christian  faith  a 
reason  for  clinging  the  more  to  one  who  had  not  a  large 
party  to  back  him.     That  little  man's  heart  was  heroic; 


326  FELIX    HOLT, 


ho  was  not  one  of  those  Liberals  who  make  their  anxiei  y 
for  "the  cause"  of  Liberalism  a  plea  for  cowardlf 
desertion. 

Besides  himself,  he  believed  there  was  no  one  who  could 
bear  testimony  to  the  remonstrances  of  Felix  concerning 
the  treating  of  the  Sproxton  men,  except  Jermyn,  John- 
son, and  Harold  Transome.  Though  he  had  the  vaguest 
idea  of  what  could  be  done  in  the  case,  he  fixed  his  mind 
on  the  probability  that  Mr.  Transome  would  be  moved  to 
the  utmost  exertion,  if  only  as  an  atonement;  but  lib 
dared  not  take  any  step  until  he  had  consulted  Felix, 
who  he  foresaw  was  likely  to  have  a  very  strong  determi- 
nation as  to  the  help  he  would  accept  or  not  accept. 

This  last  expectation  was  fulfilled,  Mr.  Lyon  returned  to 
Esther,  after  his  day's  journey  to  Loamford  and  back, 
with  less  of  trouble  and  perplexity  in  his  mind:  he  had  at 
least  got  a  definite  course  marked  out,  to  which  he  must 
resign  himself.  Felix  had  declared  that  he  would  receive 
no  aid  from  Harold  Transome,  except  the  aid  he  might 
give  as  an  honest  witness.  There  was  nothing  to  be  done 
for  him  but  what  was  perfectly  simple  and  direct.  Even 
if  the  pleading  of  counsel  had  been  permitted  (and  at  that 
time  it  was  not)  on  behalf  of  a  prisoner  on  trial  for  felony, 
Felix  would  have  declined  it:  he  would  in  any  case  have 
spoken  in  his  own  defense.  He  had  a  perfectly  simple 
account  to  give,  and  needed  not  to  avail  himself  of  any 
legal  adroitness.  He  consented  to  accept  the  services  of  a 
respectable  solicitor  in  Loamford,  who  offered  to  conduct 
his  case  without  any  fees.  The  work  was  plain  and  easy, 
Felix  said.  The  only  witnesses  who  had  to  be  hunted  up  at 
all  were  some  who  could  testify  that  he  had  tried  to  take 
the  crowd  down  Hobb's  Lane,  and  that  they  had  gone  to 
the  Manor  in  spite  of  him. 

"Then  he  is  not  so  much  cast  doAvn  as  you  feared, 
father?"  said  Esther. 

"No,  child;  albeit  he  is  pale  and  much  shaken  for  one 
.--o  stalwart.  He  hath  no  grief,  he  says,  save  for  the  poor 
man  Tucker,  and  for  his  mother;  otherwise  his  heart  is 
H'ithout  a  burden.  We  discoursed  greatly  on  the  sad 
etTeet  of  all  this  for  his  mother,  and  on  the  perplexed  con- 
dition of  human  things,  whereby  even  right  action  seems 
to  bring  evil  consequences,  if  we  have  respect  only  to  OTir 
own  brief  lives,  and  not  to  that  larger  rule  whereby  we  are 
stewards  of  the  eternal  dealings,  and  not  contrivers  of  our 
own  success." 


THE   KADICAL.  327 

"Did  he  say  nothing  about  me,  father?"  said  Esther, 
trembling  a  little,  but  unable  to  repress  her  egoism. 

"  Yes;  he  asked  if  you  were  well,  and  sent  his  affec- 
tionate regards,  Nay,  he  bade  me  say  something  Avhich 
appears  to  refer  to  your  discourse  together  when  I  was  not 
present.  'Tell  her,'  he  said,  'whatever  they  sentence 
me  to,  she  knows  they  can't  rob  me  of  my  vocation. 
With  poverty  for  my  bride,  and  preaching  and  pedagoguy 
for  my  business,  I  am  sure  of  a  handsome  establishment.' 
He  laughed — doubtless  bearing  in  mind  some  playfulness 
of  thine." 

Mr.  Lyon  seemed  to  be  looking  at  Esther  as  he  smiled, 
but  she  was  not  near  enough  for  him  to  discern  the 
expression  of  her  face.  Just  then  it  seemed  made  for 
melancholy  rather  than  for  playfulness.  Hers  was  not  a 
childish  beauty;  and  when  the  sparkle  of  mischief,  wit 
and  vanity  was  out  of  her  eyes,  and  the  large  look  of 
abstracted  sorrow  was  there,  you  would  have  been  surprised 
by  a  certain  grandeur  which  the  smiles  had  hidden.  That 
changing  face  was  the  perfect  symbol  of  her  mixed  sus- 
ceptible nature,  in  which  battle  was  inevitable,  and  the 
side  of  victorv  uncertain. 

She  began  to  look  on  all  that  had  passed  between  herself 
and  Felix  as  something  not  buried,  but  embalmed  and 
kept  as  a  relic  in  a  private  sanctuary.  The  very  entireness 
of  her  preoccupation  about  him,  the  perpetual  repetition 
in  her  memory  of  all  that  had  passed  between  them, 
tended  to  produce  this  effect.  She  lived  with  him  in  the 
past;  in  the  future  she  seemed  shut  out  from  him.  He 
was  an  influence  above  her  life,  rather  than  a  part  of  it; 
some  time  or  otber,  perhaps,  he  would  be  to  her  as  if  he 
belonged  to  the  solemn  admonishing  skies,  checking  her 
self-satisfied  pettiness  Avith  the  suggestion  of  a  wider  life. 

But  not  yet — not  while  her  trouble  was  so  fresh.  For 
it  was  still  Iter  trouble,  and  not  Felix  Holt's.  Perhaps  it 
was  a  subtraction  from  his  power  over  her,  that  she  could 
never  think  of  him  with  pity,  because  he  always  seemed  to 
her  too  great  and  strong  to  be  pitied;  he  wanted  nothing. 
He  evaded  calamity  by  choosing  privation.  The  best  part 
of  a  woman's  love  is  worship;  but  it  is  hard  to  her  to  be 
sent  away  with  her  precious  spikenard  rejected,  and  her 
long  tresses  too,  that  were  let  fall  ready  to  soothe  tlie 
wearied  feet. 

While  Esther  was  carrying  these  things  in  her  heart, 
the  January  days  were  beginning  to  pass  by  with  their 


328  FELIX    HOLT, 

wonted  wintry  monotony,  except  that  there  was  rather 
more  of  good  cheer  than  nsual  remaining  from  the  feast 
of  Twelfth  Night  among  the  triumphant  Tories,  and 
rather  more  scandal  than  usual  excited  among  the  morti- 
fied Dissenters  by  the  willfulness  of  their  minister.  He 
had  actually  mentioned  Felix  Holt  by  name  in  his  evening 
sermon,  and  offered  up  a  petition  for  him  in  the  evening 
prayer,  also  by  name — not  as  "  a  young  Ishmaelite,  whom 
we  would  fain  see  brought  back  from  the  lawless  life  of  the 
desert,  and  seated  in  the  same  fold  even  with  the  sons  of 
Judah  and  of  Benjamin/'  a  suitable  perij)hrasis  which 
Brother  Kemji  threw  ofl:  without  any  effort,  and  with  all 
the  felicity  of  a  suggestive  critic.  Poor  Mrs.  Holt,  indeed, 
even  in  the  midst  of  her  grief,  experienced  a  proud  satis- 
faction; that  though  not  a  church  member  she  was  now  an 
object  of  congregational  remark  and  ministerial  allusion. 
Feeling  herself  a  spotless  character  standing  out  in  relief 
on  a  dark  background  of  affliction,  and  a  practical  con- 
tradiction to  that  extreme  doctrine  of  human  depravity 
which  she  had  never  ''given  in  to,"  she  was  naturally 
gratified  and  soothed  by  a  notice  which  must  be  a  recog- 
nition. But  more  influential  hearers  were  of  opinion, 
that  in  a  man  who  had  so  many  long  sentences  at  com- 
mand as  Mr.  Lyon,  so  many  parentheses  and  modifying 
clauses,  this  naked  use  of  a  non-scriptural  Treby  name  in  an 
address  to  the  Almighty  was  all  the  more  offensive.  In  a 
low  unlettered  local  preacher  of  the  Wesleyan  persuasion 
such  things  might  pass;  but  a  certain  style  in  prayer  Avas 
demanded  from  Independents,  the  most  educated  body 
in  the  ranks  of  orthodox  Dissent.  To  Mr.  Lyon  such 
notions  seemed  painfully  perverse,  and  the  next  morning 
he  was  declaring  to  Esther  his  resolution  stoutly  to  with- 
stand them,  and  to  count  nothing  common  or  unclean  on 
which  a  blessing  could  be  asked,  when  the  tenor  of  his 
thougjits  was  completely  changed  by  a  great  shock  of  sur- 
prise which  made  both  himself  and  Esther  sit  looking  at 
each  other  in  speechless  amazement. 

The  cause  was  a  letter  brought  by  a  special  messenger 
from  Duffield;  a  heavy  letter  addressed  to  Esther  in  a  busi- 
ness-like manner,  quite  unexampled  in  her  correspondence. 
And  the  contents  of  the  letter  were  more  startling  tlian  its 
exterior.     It  began: 

Madam, — Herewith  we  send  you  a  brief  abstract  of  evidence  which 
has  come  within  our  knowledge,  that  the  right  of  remainder  whereby 
the  lineal  issue  of  Edward  Bycliffe  can  claim  possession  of  the  estates 


THE   KADICAL.  3x51) 

of  -which  the  entail  was  settled  by  John  Justus  Transome  in  1729,  now 
first  accrues  to  you  as  the  sole  and  lawful  issue  of  Maurice  Christian 
Bycliffe.  We  are  confident  of  success  in  the  prosecution  of  this  claim, 
which  will  result  to  you  in  the  possession  of  estates  to  the  value,  at 
the  lowest,  of  from  five  to  six  thousand  per  annum 

It  was  at  this  point  that  Esther,  who  was  reading  aloud, 
let  her  hand  fall  with  the  letter  on  her  lap,  and  with  a 
palpitating  heart  looked  at  her  father,  who  looked  again, 
in  silence  that  lasted  for  two  or  three  minutes.  A  certain 
terror  was  upon  them  both,  though  the  thoughts  that  laid 
that  weight  on  the  tongue  of  each  were  different. 

It  was  Mr.  Lyon  who  spoke  first. 

"This,  then,  is  what  the  man  named  Christian  referred 
to.     I  distrusted  him,  yet  it  seems  he  spoke  truly." 

"But,"  said  Esther,  whose  imagination  ran  necessarily 
to  those  conditions  of  wealth  which  she  could  best  appre- 
ciate, "do  they  mean  that  the  Transomes  would  be  turned 
out  of  Transome  Court,  and  that  I  should  go  and  live 
there?     It  seems  quite  an  impossible  thing." 

"  Nay,  child,  I  know  not.  I  am  ignorant  in  these  things, 
and  the  thought  of  worldly  grandeur  for  you  hath  more  of 
terror  than  of  gladness  for  me.  Nevertheless  we  must 
duly  weigh  all  things,  not  considering  aught  that  befalls 
us  as  a  bare  event,  but  rather  as  an  occasion  for  faithful 
stewardship.  Let  us  go  to  my  study  and  consider  this 
writing  further." 

How  this  announcement,  which  to  Esther  seemed  as 
unprepared  as  if  it  had  fallen  from  the  skies,  came  to  be 
made  to  her  by  solicitors  other  than  Batt  &  Cowley,  the  old 
lawyers  of  the  Bycliflfes,  was  by  a  sequence  as  natural,  tliat 
is  to  say,  as  legally  natural,  as  any  in  the  world.  The 
secret  worker  of  the  apparent  wonder  was  Mr.  Johnson, 
who,  on  the  very  day  when  he  wrote  to  give  his  patron, 
Mr.  Jermyn,  the  serious  warning  that  a  bill  was  likely  to 
be  filed  in  Chancery  against  him,  had  carried  forward  with 
added  zeal  the  business  already  commenced,  of  arranging 
Avitli  another  firm  his  sliare  in  the  ])rofits  likely  to  result 
from  the  prosecution  of  Esther  Bycliffe's  claim. 

Jermyn's  star  was  certainly  going  down,  and  Johnson 
did  not  feel  an  unmitigated  grief.  Beyond  some  trouble- 
some declarations  as  to  his  actual  share  in  transactions  in 
which  his  name  had  been  used,  Jolmson  saw  nothing 
formidable  in  prospect  for  himself.  He  was  not  going  to 
be  ruined,  though  Jermyn  prnbably  was:  he  was  not  a 
highflyer,  but  a  mere  climbing-bird^  who  could  hold  on  and 


330  FELIX   HOLT, 

get  his  livelihood  just  as  well  if  his  wings  were  clipped  a 
little.  And,  in  the  mean  time,  here  was  something  to  be 
gained  in  this  Bycliiie  business,  which,  it  was  not  unpleas- 
ant to  think,  was  a  nut  that  Jermyn  had  intended  to  keep 
for  his  own  particular  cracking,  and  which  would  be  rather 
a  severe  astonishment  to  Mr.  Harold  Transome,  whose 
manners  toward  respectable  agents  were  such  as  leave  a 
smart  in  a  man  of  spirit. 

Under  the  stimulus  of  small  many-mixed  motives  like 
these,  a  great  deal  of  business  has  been  done  in  the  world 
by  well-clad  and,  in  1833,  clean-shaven  men,  whose  names 
are  on  charity-lists,  and  who  do  not  know  that  they  are 
base.  Mr.  Johnson's  character  was  not  much  more  excep- 
tional than  his  double  chin. 

No  system,  religious  or  political,  I  believe,  has  laid  it 
'down  as  a  principle  that  all  men  are  alike  virtuous,  or  even 
that  all  the  people  rated  for  £80  houses  are  an  honor  to 
their  species. 


CHAPTEK    XXXVIII. 

The  down  we  rest  on  in  our  aery  dreams 

Has  not  been  plucked  from  birds  that  live  and  smart : 

'Tis  but  warm  snow,  that  melts  not. 

The  story  and  the  prospect  revealed  to  Esther  by  the 
lawyers  letter,  which  she  and  her  father  studied  together, 
had  made  an  impression  on  her  very  different  from  what 
she  had  been  used  to  figure  to  herself  in  her  many  day- 
dreams as  to  the  effect  of  a  sudden  elevation  in  rank  and 
fortune.  In  her  day-dreams  she  had  not  traced  out  the 
means  by  which  such  a  change  could  be  brought  about;  in 
fact,  the  change  had  seemed  impossible  to  her,  excejDt  in 
her  little  private  Utopia,  which,  like  other  Utopias,  was 
filled  with  delightful  results,  independent  of  processes. 
But  her  mind  had  fixed  itself  habitually  on  the  signs  and 
luxuries  of  ladyhood,  for  which  she  had  the  keenest  per- 
ception. She  had  seen  the  very  mat  in  her  carriage, 
had  scented  the  dried  rose-leaves  in  her  corridors,  had 
felt  the  soft  carpets  under  her  pretty  feet,  and  seen 
herself,  as  she  rose  from  her  sofa  cushions,  in  the  crystal 
panel  that  reflected  a  long  drawing-room,  where  the 
conservatory  flowers  and  the  pictures  of  fair  women  left 
her  still  with  the  supremacy  of  charm.     She  had  trodden 


THE   RADICAL.  331 

the  marble-firm  gravel  of  lier  garden-walks  and  the  soft 
deep  turf  of  her  lawn;  she  had  had  her  servants  about 
her  filled  with  adoring  respect,  because  of  her  kindness  as 
well  as  her  grace  and  beauty;  and  she  had  had  several 
accomplished  cavaliers  all  at  once  sueing  for  her  hand  — 
one  of  whom,  uniting  very  high  birth  with  long  dark  eye- 
lashes and  the  most  distinguished  talents,  she  secretly 
preferred,  though  his  pride  and  hers  hindered  an  avowal, 
and  supplied  the  inestimable  interest  of  retardation.  The 
glimpses  she  had  had  in  her  brief  life  as  a  family  gov- 
erness, supplied  her  ready  faculty  with  details  enough  of 
delightful  still  life  to  furnish  her  day-dreams;  and  no  one 
who  has  not,  like  Esther,  a  strong  natural  prompting  and 
susceptibility  toward  such  things,  and  has  at  the  same 
time  suffered  from  the  presence  of  opposite  conditions, 
can  understand  how  powerfully  those  minor  accidents  of 
rank  which  please  the  fastidious  sense  can  preoccupy  the 
imagination. 

It  seemed  that  almost  everything  in  her  day-dreams  — 
cavaliers  apart — must  be  found  at  Transome  Court.  But 
now  that  fancy  was  becoming  real,  and  the  impossible 
appeared  possible,  Esther  found  the  balance  of  her  atten- 
tion reversed:  now  that  her  ladyhood  was  not  simply  in 
Utopia,  she  found  herself  arrested  and  painfully  grasped 
by  the  means  through  which  the  ladyhood  was  to  be 
obtained.  To  her  inexperience  this  strange  story  of  an 
alienated  inheritance,  of  such  a  last  representative  of 
pure-blooded  lineage  as  old  Thomas  Transome  the  bill- 
sticker,  above  all  of  the  dispossession  hanging  over  those 
who  actually  held,  and  had  expected  always  to  hold,  the 
wealth  and  position  which  were  suddenly  announced  to  be 
rightly  hers — all  these  things  made  a  picture,  not  for  her 
own  tastes  and  fancies  to  float  in  with  Elysian  indulgence, 
but  in  which  she  was  compelled  to  gaze  on  the  degrading 
hard  experience  of  other  human  beings,  and  on  a  humili- 
ating loss  which  was  the  obverse  of  her  own  proud  gain. 
Even  in  her  times  of  most  untroubled  egoism,  Esther 
shrank  from  anything  ungenerous;  and  the  fact  that  she 
had  a  very  lively  image  of  Harold  Transome  and  his 
gypsy-eyed  boy  in  her  mind,  gave  additional  distinctness 
to  the  thought  that  if  she  entered  they  must  depart.  Of 
the  elder  Transomes  she  had  a  dimmer  vision,  and  they 
were  necessarily  in  the  background  to  her  sympathy. 

She  and  her  "father  sat  with  their  hands  locked,  as  they 
might  have  done  if  they  had  been  listening  to  u  solemn 


332  FELIX   HOLT, 

oracle  in  the  days  of  old  revealing  unknown  kinship  and 
rightful  heirdom.  It  was  not  that  Esther  had  any  thought 
of  renouncing  her  fortune;  she  was  incapable,,  in  these 
nioments,  of  condensing  her  vague  ideas  and  feelings  intp 
any  distinct  plan  of  action,  nor  indeed  did  it  seem  that 
she  was  called  upon  to  act  Avith  any  promptitude.  It  was 
only  that  she  was  conscious  of  being  strangely  awed  by 
something  that  was  called  good  fortune;  and  the  awe  shut 
out  any  sclieme  of  rejection  as  much  as  any  triumphant 
joy  in  acceptance.  Her  first  father,  she  learned,  had  died 
disappointed  and  in  wrongful  imprisonment,  and  an  unde- 
fined sense  of  Nemesis  seemed  half  to  sanctify  her  inherit- 
ance, and  counteract  its  apparent  arbitrariness. 

Felix  Holt  was  present  in  her  mind  throughout;  what 
he  would  say  was  an  imaginary  commentary  that  she  was 
constantly  framing,  and  the  words  that  she  most  frequently 
gave  liim  —  for  she  dramatised  under  the  inspiration  of  a 
sadness  slightly  bitter — were  of  this  kind:  "  That  is  clearly 
your  destiny — to  be  aristocratic,  to  be  rjch.  I  always  saw 
that  our  lots  lay  widely  apart.  You  are  not  fit  for  poverty, 
or  any  work  of  difficulty.  But  remember  what  I  once  said 
to  you  about  a  vision  of  consequences;  take  care  where 
your  fortune  leads  you.'' 

Her  father  had  not  spoken  since  they  had  ended  their 
study  and  discussion  of  the  story  and  the  evidence  as  it 
was  presented  to  them.  Into  this  he  had  entered  with  his 
usual  penetrating  activity;  but  he  was  so  accustomed  to 
the  impersonal  study  of  narrative,  that  even  in  these 
exceptional  moments  the  habit  of  half  a  century  asserted 
itself,  and  he  seemed  sometimes  not  to  distinguish  the  case 
of  Esther's  inheritance  from  a  story  in  ancient  history, 
until  some  detail  recalled  him  to  the  profound  feeling  that 
a  great,  great  change  might  be  coming  over  the  life  of 
this  child  who  was  so  close  to  him.  At  last  he  relapsed 
into  total  silence,  and  for  some  time  Esther  was  not  moved 
to  interrupt  it.  He  had  sunk  back  in  his  chair  with  his 
hand  locked  in  hers,  and  was  pursuing  a  sort  of  prayerful 
nieditation:  he  lifted  up  no  formal  petition,  but  it  was  as 
if  his  soul  traveled  again  over  the  facts  he  had  been  consid- 
ering in  the  company  of  a  guide  ready  to  inspire  and 
correct  him.  He  was  striving  to  purify  his  feeling  in  this 
matter  from  selfish  or  worldly  dross  —  a  striving  which  is 
that  prayer  without  ceasing,  sure  to  wrest  an  answer  by  its 
sublime  importunity. 

There  is  no  knowing  k»w  long  they  might  have  sat  in 


THE   RADICAL.  333 

this  way,  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  inevitable  Lyddy 
reminding  them  dismally  of  dinner. 

"  Yes,  Lyddy,  we  come/'  said  Esther;  and  then,  before 
moving  — 

"  Is  there  any  advice  you  have  in  your  mind  for  me, 
father?"  The  sense  of  awe  was  growing  in  Esther.  Her 
iutensest  life  was  no  longer  in  her  dreams,  where  she  made 
tilings  to  her  own  mind:  she  was  moving  in  a  world  charged 
with  forces. 

"Not  yet,  my  dear — save  this;  that  you  will  seek  special 
illumination  in  this  juncture,  and,  above  all,  be  watchful 
that  your  soul  be  not  lifted  up  within  you  by  what,  rightly 
considered,  is  rather  an  increase  of  charge,  and  a  call  upon 
you  to  walk  along  a  path  which  is  indeed  easy  to  the  flesh, 
but  dangerous  to  the  spirit." 

"You  would  always  live  with  me,  father?"  Esther  said, 
under  a  strong  impulse — joartly  aifection,  partly  the  need, 
to  grasp  at  some  moral  helj).  But  she  had  no  sooner 
uttered  the  words  than  they  raised  a  vision,  showing,  as 
by  a  flash  of  lightnii\g,  the  incongruity  of  that  jjast  which 
had  created  the  sanctities  and  affections  of  her  life  with 

that  future  which  was  coming  to  her The  little  rusty 

old  minister,  with  the  one  luxury  of  his  Sunday  evening 
pipe,  smoked  up  the  kitchen  chimney,  coming  to  live  in 

the  midst  of  grandeur but  no!  her  father,  with  the 

grandeur  of  his  past  sorrow  and  his  long  struggling  labors, 
forsaking  his  vocation,  and  vulgarly  accepting  an  existence 
unsuited  to  him. Esther's  face  flushed  with  the  excite- 
ment of  this  vision  and  its  reversed  interpretation,  which 
five  months  ago  she  would  have  been  incapable  of  seeing. 
Her  question  to  her  father  seemed  like  a  mocker}^;  she  was 
ashamed.     He  answered  slowly — 

"Touch  not  that  cliord  yet,  my  child.  I  must  learn  to 
think  of  thy  lot  according  to  the  demands  of  Providence. 
We  will  rest  a  while  from  the  subject;  and  I  will  seek 
calmness  in  my  ordinary  duties." 

The  next  morning  nothing  more  was  said.  Mr.  Lyon 
was  absorbed  in  his  sermon-making,  for  it  was  near  the 
end  of  the  Aveek,  and  Esther  was  obliged  to  attend  to  her 
pupils.  Mrs.  Holt  came  by  invitation  with  little  Job  to 
share  their  dinner  of  roast-meat;  and,  after  much  of  what 
the  minister  called  unprofitable  discoiirse,  she  was  quitting 
the  house  when  she  hastened  back  with  an  astonished  face, 
to  tell  Mr.  Lyon  and  Esther,  who  were  already  in  wonder 
at  crashing,   thundering  sounds  on  the  pavement,  that 


334  FELIX   HOLT, 

there  was  a  carriage  stopping  and  stamping  at  the  entry 
into  Malthouse  Yard,  with  "'all  sorts  of  tine  liveries,'^  and 
a  lady  and  gentleman  inside.  Mr.  Lyon  and  Esther 
looked  at  each  other,  both  having  the  same  name  in  their 
minds. 

"If  it's  Mr.  Transonic  or  somebody  else  as  is  great,  Mr. 
Lyon,"  nrged  Mrs.  Holt,  "you'll  remember  my  son,  and 
say  he's  got  a  mother  with  a  character  they  may  inquire 
into  as  much  as  they  like.  And  never  mind  what  Felix 
says,  for  he's  so  masterful  he'd  stay  in  prison  and  be  trans 
ported  whether  or  no,  only  to  have  his  OAvn  way.  For  it'^ 
not  to  be  thought  but  what  the  great  people  could  get  liin\ 
off  if  they  would;  and  it's  very  hard  with  a  King  in  the 
country  and  all  the  texts  in  Proverbs  about  the  King's 
countenance,  and  Solomon  and  the  live  baby " 

Mr,  Lyon  lifted  up  his  hand  deprecatingly,  and  Mrs. 
Holt  retreated  from  the  parlor-door  to  a  corner  of  tha 
kitchen,  the  outer  doorway  being  occupied  by  Dominic, 
who  was  inquiring  if  ]\Ir.  and  Miss  L3'on  were  at  home,  and 
could  receive  Mrs.  Transonic  and  Mr.  Harold  Transome. 
While  Dominic  went  back  to  the  carriage  Mrs.  Holt 
escajied  Avith  her  tiny  companion  to  Zachary's,  the  new 
pew-oi)ener,  observing  to  Lyddy  that  she  knew  herself,  and 
was  not  that  woman  to  stay  where  she  might  not  be  wanted; 
whereupon  Lyddy,  differing  fundamentally,  admonished 
her  parting  ear  that  it  was  well  if  she  knew  herself  to  be 
dust  and  ashes — silently  extending  the  application  of  this 
remark  to  Mrs.  Transome,  as  she  saw  the  tall  lady  sweep 
in  arrayed  in  her  rich  black  and  fur,  with  that  fine  gentle- 
man behind  her  whose  thick  topknot  of  wavy  hair,  spark- 
ling ring,  dark  complexion,  and  general  air  of  worldly 
exaltation  nnconnected  Avith  chapel,  were  painfully  suggest- 
ive to  Lyddy  of  Herod,  Pontius  Pilate,  or  the  much-quoted 
Gallio. 

Harold  Transome,  greeting  Esther  gracefully,  presented 
his  mother,  Avhose  eagle-like  glance,  fixed  on  her  from  the 
first  moment  of  entering,  seemed  to  Esther  to  pierce  her 
through.  Mrs.  Transome  hardly  noticed  Mr.  Lyon,  not 
from  studied  haughtiness,  but  from  sheer  mental  inability 
to  consider  him — as  a  person  ignorant  of  natural  history 
is  unable  to  consider  a  fresh-Avater  polyp  otherwise  than 
as  a  sort  of  animated  Avced,  certainly  noi  fit  for  table. 
But  Harold  saAv  that  his  mother  Avas  agreeably  struck  by 
Esther,  aa'Iio  indeed  shoAved  to  much  advantage.  She  was 
not  at  all  taken  by  surprise,  and  maintained  a  dignified 


THE    KADICAL.  335 

quietude  ;  but  her  previous  knowledge  and  reflection  tibout 
the  possible  dispossession  of  these  Transomes  gave  her  a 
softened  feeling  toward  them  which  tinged  her  manners 
very  agreeably. 

Harold  was  carefully  polite  to  the  minister,  throwing 
out  a  word  to  make  him  understand  that  he  had  an 
important  part  in  the  important  business  which  had 
brought  this  unannounced  visit ;  and  the  four  made  a 
group  seated  not  far  off  each  other  near  the  window,  Mrs. 
Transonic  and  Esther  being  on  the  sofa. 

'^*You  must  be  astonished  at  a  visit  from  me.  Miss 
Lyon,"  Mrs.  Transonic  began;  "I  seldom  come  to  Treby 
Magna.  Now  I  see  you,  the  visit  is  an  unexpected 
pleasure  ;  but  the  cause  of  my  coming  is  business  of  a 
serious  nature,  which  my  son  will  communicate  to  you." 

"I  ought  to  begin  by  saying  that  what  I  have  to 
announce  to  you  is  the  reverse  of  disagreeable.  Miss 
Lyon,"  said  Harold,  with  lively  ease.  "I  don't  suppose 
the  world  would  consider  it  very  good  news  for  me ;  but 
a  rejected  candidate,  Mr.  Lyon,"  Harold  went  on,  turn- 
ing graciously  to  the  minister,  '^  begins  to  be  inured  to 
loss  and  misfortune." 

"  Truly,  sir,"  said  Mr.  Lyon,  with  a  rather  sad  solem- 
nity, "your  allusion  hath  a  grievous  bearing  for  me, 
but  I  will  not  retard  your  present  purpose,  by  furthei 
remark." 

"You  will  never  guess  what  I  have  to  disclose,"  said 
Harold,  again  looking  at  Esther,  "  unless,  indeed,  you 
liave  already  had  some  previous  intimation  of  it." 

"Does  it  refer  to  law  and  inheritance?"  said  Esther, 
with  a  smile.  She  was  already  brightened  by  Harold's 
manner.  The  news  seemed  to  be  losing  its  chillness,  and 
to  be  something  really  belonging  to  warm,  comfortable, 
interesting  life. 

"Then  you  have  already  heard  of  it?"  said  Harold, 
inwardly  vexed,  but  sufficiently  prepared  not  to  seem  so. 

"Only  yesterday,"  said  Esther,  quite  simply.  "I 
received  a  letter  from  some  lawyers  with  a  statement  of 
many  surprising  things,  showing  that  I  was  an  heiress  " — 
liere  she  turned  very  prettily  to  address  Mrs.  Transonic — 
"  wliich,  as  you  may  imagine,  is  one  of  the  last  things  I 
could  have  supposed  myself  to  be." 

"  My  dear,"  said  Mrs,  Transonic  with  elderly  grace,  just 
laying  her  hand  for  an  instant  on  Esther's,  "it  is  a  lot 
that  would  become  you  admirably." 


336  FELIX    HOLT, 

Esther  blushed,  and  said  playfully: 

"  Oil,  1  know  Avhat  to  buy  with  fifty  pounds  a-year,  but 
[  know  the  price  of  nothing  beyond  that." 

Her  father  sat  looking  at  her  through  his  spectacles, 
stroking  his  chin.  It  was  amazing  to  herself  that  she  was 
taking  so  lightly  now  what  had  caused  her  such  deep 
emotion  yesterday. 

"I  dare  say,  then,"  said  Harold,  ''you  are  more  fully 
j)ossessed  of  particulars  than  I  am.  So  that  my  mother 
and  I  need  only  tell  you  what  no  one  else  can  tell  you  — 
that  is,  what  are  her  and  my  feelings  and  wishes  under 
these  new  and  unexpected  circumstances." 

"I  am  most  anxious,"  said  Esther,  with  a  grave  beauti- 
ful look  of  respect  to  Mrs.  Transonic —  "  most  anxious  on 
that  point.  Indeed,  being  of  course  in  uncertainty  about 
it,  I  have  not  yet  known  whether  I  could  rejoice,"  Mrs. 
Transome's  glance  had  softened.  She  liked  Esther  to  look 
at  her. 

"  Our  chief  anxiety,"  she  said,  knowing  what  Harold 
Avished  her  to  say,  "is,  that  there  may  be  no  contest,  no 
useless  expenditure  of  money.  Of  course  we  will  surrender 
wliut  can  be  rightfully  claimed." 

•'  My  mother  expresses  our  feeling  precisely,  Miss  Lyon," 
said  Harold.  "And  I'm  sure,  Mr.  Lyon,  you  will  under- 
stand our  djesire." 

"Assuredly,  sir.  My  daughter  would  in  any  case  have 
had  my  advice  to  seek  a  conclusion  which  would  involve 
no  strife.  We  endeavor,  sir,  in  our  body,  to  hold  to  the 
apostolic  rule  that  one  Christian  brother  should  not  go  to 
law  with  another:  and  I,  for  my  part,  would  extend  this 
rule  to  all  my  fellow-men,  apprehending  that  the  practice 
of  our  courts  is  little  consistent  with  the  simplicity  that  is 
in  Christ." 

"If  it  is  to  depend  on  my  will,"  said  Esther,  "there  is 
nothing  that  would  be  more  repugnant  to  me  than  any 
struggle  on  such  a  subject.  But  can't  the  lawyers  go  on 
doing  what  they  will  in  spite  of  me?  It  seems  that  this  is 
what  they  mean." 

"Not  exactly,"  said  Harold,  smiling.  "  Of  course  they 
live  by  such  struggles  as  you  dislike.  But  we  can  thwart 
them  by  determining  not  to  quarrel.  It  is  desirable  that 
we  should  consider  the  affair  together,  and  put  it  into  the 
hands  of  honorable  solicitors.  I  assure  you  we  Transomes 
will  not  contend  for  what  is  not  our  own." 

"And  this  is  what  I  have  come  to  beg  of  you,"  said 


THE   RADICAL.  337 

Mrs.  Transome.  ^'It  is  that  you  will  come  to  Trausome 
Court  —  and  let  us  take  full  time  to  arrange  matters. 
Do  oblige  me:  you  shall  not  be  teazed  more  than  you  like 
by  an  old  woman:  you  shall  do  just  as  you  please,  and 
become  acquainted  with  your  future  home,  since  it  is  to  be 
yours.  I  can  tell  you  a  world  of  things  that  you  will  want 
to  know;  and  the  business  can  proceed  properly." 

"Do  consent,"  said  Harold,  with  winning  brevity. 

Esther  was  flushed,  and  her  eyes  were  bright.  It  was 
impossible  for  her  not  to  feel  that  the  proposal  was  a  more 
tempting  step  toward  her  change  of  condition  than  she 
could  have  thought  of  beforehand.  She  had  forgotten 
that  she  was  in  any  trouble.  But  she  looked  toward  her 
father,  who  was  again  stroking  his  chin,  as  was  his  habit 
when  he  was  doubting  and  delibeisating. 

"  I  hope  you  do  not  disa]>prove  of  Miss  Lyon^s  granting 
us  this  favor?"  said  Harold  to  the  minister. 

"I  have  nothing  to  oppose  to  it,  sir,  if  my  daughter's 
own  mind  is  clear  as  to  her  course." 

"  You  will  come — now — with  us,"  said  Mrs.  Transome, 
persuasively.  "  You  will  go  back  with  us  now  in  the 
carriage." 

Harold  was  highly  gratified  with  the  perfection  of  his 
mother's  manner  on  this  occasion,  which  he  had  looked 
forward  to  as  difficult.  Since  he  had  come  home  again, 
he  had  never  seen  her  so  much  at  her  ease,  or  with  so 
much  benignancy  in  her  face.  The  secret  lay  in  the 
charm  of  Esther's  sweet  young  deference,  a  sort  of  charm 
that  had  not  before  entered  into  Mrs.  Transome's  elderl}- 
life.  Esther's  pretty  behavior,  it  must  be  confessed, 
was  not  fed  entirely  from  lofty  moral  sources:  over  and 
above  her  really  generous  feeling,  she  enjoyed  Mrs.  Tran- 
some's accent,  the  high-bred  quietness  of  her  speech,  the 
delicate  odor  of  her  drapery.  She  had  always  thought 
that  life  must  be  particularly  easy  if  one  could  pass 
it  among  refined  people;  and  so  it  seemed  at  this  moment. 
She  wished,  unmixedly,  to  go  to  Transonic  Court. 

"Since  my  father  has  no  objection,"  she  said,  "and 
you  urge  me  so  kindly.  But  I  must  beg  for  time  to  pack 
up  a  few  clothes." 

"By  all  means,"  said  Mrs.  Transome.  "We  are  not 
at  all  pressed." 

Wlien  Esther  had  left  the  room,  Harold  said,  "'  Apart 
from  our  immediate  reason  for  coming,  Mr.  Lyon,  I  could 
have  wished  to  see  you  about  these  unhappy  consequences 
22 


338  FELIX   HOLT, 

of  the  election  contest.     But  you  will  understand  that  I 
have   been  much  preoccupied  with  private  affairs." 

"  You  have  well  said  that  the  consequences  are  unhappy, 
sir.  And  but  for  a  reliance  on  something  more  than 
human  calculation,  I  know  not  Avhich  I  should  most 
bewail — the  scandal  wdiicli  wrong-dealing  has  brought  on 
right  principles,  or  the  snares  which  it  laid  for  the  feet 
of  a  young  man  who  is  dear  to  me.  '  One  soweth,  and 
another  reapeth/  is  a  verity  that  applies  to  evil  as  well 
as  good. 

"You  are  referring  to  Felix  Holt.  I  have  not  neg- 
lected steps  to  secure  the  best  legal  helj^  for  the  prison- 
ers: but  I  am  given  to  understand  that  Holt  refuses  any 
aid  from  me.  I  hope  he  will  not  go  rashly  to  work  in 
speaking  in  his  own  defense  vvithout  any  legal  instruc- 
tion. It  is  an  opprobrium  of  our  law  that  no  counsel  is 
allowed  to  plead  for  the  prisoner  in  cases  of  felony.  A 
ready  tongue  may  do  a  man  as  mubh  harm  as  good  in 
a  court  of  justice.  He  piques  himself  on  making  a 
display,  and  displays  a   little   too  much." 

"Sir,  you  know  him  not,"  said  the  little  minister,  in 
his  deeper  tone.  "  He  would  not  accept,  even  if  it  were 
accorded,  a  defense  wherein  the  truth  was  screened  or 
avoided, — not  from  a  vanglorious  spirit  of  self-exhibition, 
for  he  hath  a  singular  directness  and  simplicity  of  speech; 
but  from  an  averseness  to  a  profession  wherein  a  man  may 
without  shame  seek  to  justify  the  wicked  for  reward,  and 
take  away  the  righteousness  of  the  righteous  from  him." 

"  It's  a  pity  a  fine  young  fellow  should  do  himself  harm 
by  fanatical  notions  of  that  sort.  I  could  at  least  have 
procured  the  advantage  of  first-rate  consultation.  He 
didn't  look  to  me  like  a  dreamy  personage." 

"  Xor  is  he  dreamy;  rather,  his  excess  lies  in  being  too 
practical." 

"Well,  I  hope  you  will  not  encourage  him  in  such  irra- 
tionality; the  question  is  not  one  of  misrepresentation,  but 
of  adjusting  fact,  so  as  to  raise  it  to  tlie  power  of  evidence. 
Don't  you  see  that  ?  " 

"I  do,  I  do.  But  I  distrust  not  Felix  Holt's  discern- 
ment in  regard  to  his  own  case.  He  builds  not  on  doubt- 
ful things  and  hath  no  illusory  hopes;  on  the  contrary,  he 
is  of  a  too-scornful  incredulity  where  I  would  fain  see 
a  more  childlike  faith.  But  he  will  hold  no  belief  wdthout 
action  corresponding  thereto;  and  the  occasion  of  his 
return  to  this,  his  native  place,  at  a  time  which  has  proved 


THE    RADICAL.  339 

fatal,  was  no  other  than  his  resolve  to  hinder  the  sale  of 
some  drugS;,  which  had  chiefly  supported  his  mother,  but 
which  his  better  knowledge  showed  him  to  be  pernicious 
to  the  human  frame.  He  undertook  to  support  her  by  his 
own  labor;  but,  sir,  I  pray  you  to  mark — and  old  as  I  am, 
I  will  not  deny  that  this  young  man  instructs  me  herein — 
I  pray  you  to  mark  the  poisonous  confusion  of  good  and 
evil  which  is  the  wide-spreading  effect  of  vicious  practices. 
Through  the  use  of  undue  electioneering  means — concern- 
ing whicli,  however,  I  do  not  accuse  you  farther  than  of  liav- 
ing  acted  the  part  of  him  who  washes  his  hands  when  he 
delivers  up  to  others  tlie  exercise  of  an  iniquitous  power — 
Felix  Holt  is,  I  will  not  scruple  to  say,  the  innocent  victim 
of  a  riot;  and  that  deed  of  strict  honesty,  whereby  he 
took  on  himself  the  charge  of  his  aged  mother,  seems  now 
to  have  deprived  her  of  sufficient  bread,  and  is  even  an 
occasion  of  rejn'oach  to  him  from  the  weaker  brethren." 

"I  shall  be  proud  to  supply  her  as  amply  as  you  think 
desirable,"  said  Harold,  not  enjoying  this  lecture. 

*'I  will  pray  you  to  speak  of  this  question  with  my 
daughter,  who,  it  appears,  may  herself  have  large  means 
at  command,  and  would  desire  to  minister  to  Mrs.  Holt's 
needs  with  all  friendship  and  delicacy.  For  the  present 
I  can  take  care  that  she  lacks  nothing  essential." 

As  Mr.  Lyon  was  speaking,  Esther  re-entered,  equipped 
for  her  drive.  She  laid  her  hand  on  her  father's  arm  and 
said,  '*You  will  let  my  pupils  know  at  once,  will  you, 
father?" 

"Doubtless,  my  dear,"  said  the  old  man,  trembling  a 
little  under  the  feeling  that  this  departure  of  Esther's  was 
a  crisis.  Nothing  again  would  be  as  it  had  been  in  their 
mutual  life.  But  he  feared  that  he  was  being  mastered 
by  a  too  tender  self-regard,  and  struggled  to  keep  himself 
calm. 

Mrs.  Transome  and  Harold  had  both  risen. 

"If  you  are  cjuite  ready.  Miss  Lyon,"  said  Harold, 
divining  that  the  father  and  daughter  would  like  to  have 
an  unobserved  moment,  "  I  will  take  my  mother  to  the  car- 
riage and  come  back  for  you." 

AYhen  they  were  alone,  Esther  put  her  hands  on  her 
father's  shoulders  and  kissed  him. 

"This  will  not  be  a  grief  to  you,  I  hope,  father?  You 
think  it  is  better  that  I  sliould  go?" 

"Nay,  child,  I  am  weak.  But  I  would  fain  be  capable 
of  a  joy  quite    ajjart    from    the  accidents   of    my  aged 


340  FELIX   HOLT, 

earthly  existence,  whicli,  indeed,  is  a  petty  and  almost 
dried-up  fountain — wliereas  to  the  receptive  soul  the  river 
of  life  pauses  not,  nor  is  diminished." 

"  Perhaps  you  will  see  Felix  Holt  again  and  tell  him 
everything?" 

"Shall  I  say  aught  to  him  for  you?" 

"Oh,  no;  only  that  Job  Tudge  has  a  little  flannel  shirt 
and  a  box  of  lozenges,"  said  Esther,  smiling.  "Ah,  I 
hear  Mr.  Transome  coming  back.  I  must  say  good-bye  to 
Lyddy,  else  she  will  cry  over  my  hard  heart." 

In  spite  of  all  the  grave  thoughts  that  had  been,  Esther 
felt  it  a  very  pleasant  as  well  as  new  experience  to  be  led 
to  the  carriage  by  Harold  Transome,  to  be  seated  on  soft 
cushions,  and  bowled  along,  looked  at  admiringly  and  def- 
erentially by  a  person  opposite,  whom  it  was  agreeable  to 
look  at  in  return,  and  talked  to  with  suavity  and  liveliness. 
Toward  what  prospect  was  that  easy  carriage  really  leading 
her?  She  could  not  be  always  asking  herself  Mentor-like 
questions.  Her  young,  bright  nature  was  rather  weary  of 
the  sadness  that  had  grown  heavier  in  these  last  weeks,  like 
a  chill  white  mist  hopelessly  veiling  the  day.  Her  fortune 
was  beginning  to  appear  worthy  of  being  called  good  fort- 
une. She  had  come  to  a  new  stage  in  her  journey;  a  new 
day  had  arisen  on  new  scenes,  and  her  young  untired  spirit 
was  full  of  curiosity. 


CHAPTER  XXXIX. 


No  man  believes  that  many-textured  knowledge  and  skill— as  a  just  idea 
of  the  solar  system,  or  the  power  of  painting  tlesh.  or  of  reading-  written 
harmonies  —  can  come  late  and  of  a  sudden;  yet  many  will  not  stick  at 
believing  that  happiness  can  come  at  any  day  and  liour  solclj'  by  a  new 
disposition  of  events;  though  there  is  naught  least  capable  of  a  magical 
production  than  a  mortal's  happiness,  which  is  mainly  a  complex  of  habit- 
ual relations  and  dispositions  not  to  be  wrought  by  news  from  foreign 
parts,  or  any  whirling  of  fortune's  wheel  for  one  on  whose  brow  Time  has 
written  legibly. 

Some  days  after  Esther's  arrival  at  Transome  Court, 
Denner,  coming  to  dress  Mrs.  Transome  before  dinner — a 
labor  of  love  for  which  she  had  ample  leisure  now — found 
her  mistress  seated  with  more  than  ever  of  a  marble  aspect 
of  self-absorbed  suffering,  which  to  the  waiting-woman's 
keen  observation  had  been  gradually  intensifying  itself 
during  the  past  week.     She  had  tapped  st  the  door  without 


THE   RADICAL.  341 

having  been  summoned,  and  she  had  ventured  to  enter 
though  she  had  heard  no  voice  saying,  "  Come  in." 

Mrs.  Transome  had  on  a  dark  warm  dressing-gown, 
hanging  in  thick  folds  about  her,  and  she  Avas  seated 
before  a  mirror  which  filled  a  panel  from  the  floor  to 
the  ceiling.  The  room  was  bright  with  tlie  light  of  the 
fire  and  of  wax  candles.  For  some  reason,  contrary  to  lier 
usual  practice,  Mrs.  Transome  had  herself  unfastened  her 
abundant  gray  hair,  which  rolled  backward  in  a  pale  sun- 
less stream  over  her  dark  dress.  8he  was  seated  before  the 
mirror  apparently  looking  at  herself,  her  brow  knit  in  one 
deep  furrow,  and  her  jeweled  hands  laid  one  above  the 
other  on  her  .knee.  Probably  she  had  ceased  to  see  the 
reflection  in  the  mirror,  for  her  eyes  had  the  fixed  wide- 
open  look  that  belongs  not  to  examination,  but  to  reverie. 
Motionless  in  that  way,  her  clear-cut  features  keeping  dis- 
tinct record  of  past  beauty,  she  looked  like  an  image  faded, 
dried,  and  bleached  by  uncounted  suns,  rather  than  a 
breathing  woman  who  had  numbered  the  years  as  they 
passed,  and  had  a  consciousness  Avithin  her  which  was  the 
slow  deposit  of  those  ceaseless  rolling  years. 

Denner,  with  all  her  ingrained  and  systematic  reserve, 
could  not  help  showing  signs  that  she  was  startled,  when, 
peering  from  between  her  half-closed  eyelids,  she  saw  the 
motionless  image  in  the  mirror  opposite  to  her  as  she 
entered.  Her  gentle  opening  of  the  door  had  not  roused 
her  mistress,  to  whom  the  sensations  produced  by  Denner's 
presence  were  as  little  disturbing  as  those  of  a  favorite  cat. 
But  the  slight  cry,  and  the  start  reflected  in  the  glass,  were 
unusual  enough  to  break  the  reverie,  Mrs.  Transome 
moved,  leaned  back  in  her  chair,  and  said — 

"So  you're  come  at  last,  Denner?" 

'•'Yes,  madam;  it  is  not  late.  I'm  sorry  you  should 
have  undone  your  hair  yourself." 

"I  undid  it  to  see  what  an  old  hag  I  am.  These  fine 
clothes  you  put  on  me,  Denner,  are  only  a  smart  shroud." 

"  Pray  don't  talk  so,  madam.  If  there's  anybody  doesn't 
think  it  pleasant  to  look  at  you,  so  much  the  worse  for  them. 
For  my  part,  I've  seen  no  young  ones  fit  to  hold  up  your 
train.  Look  at  your  likeness  down  below;  and  though 
you're  older  now,  what  signifies?  I  wouldn't  be  Letty  in 
the  scullery  because  she's  got  red  cheeks.  _  She  mayn't 
know  she's  a  poor  creature,  but  I  know  it,  and  that's 
enough  for  me:  I  know  what  sort  of  a  dowdy  draggletail 
she'll  be  in  ten  years'  time.     I  would  change  with  nobody. 


342  FELIX    HOLT, 

madam.  And  if  troubles  were  put  up  to  market,  I'd  sooner 
buy  old  than  new.     It's  something  to  have  seen  the  worst." 

"  A  woman  never  has  seen  the  worst  till  she  is  old,  Den- 
ner,''  said  Mrs.  Trunsome,  bitterly. 

The  keen  little  waiting- woman  was  not  clear  as  to  the 
cause  of  lier  mistress's  added  bitterness;  biit  she  rarely 
brought  herself  to  ask  questions,  when  Mrs.  Transome  did 
not  authorize  them  by  beginning  to  give  her  information. 
Banks  the  bailiff  and  the  head-servant  had  nodded  and 
winked  a  good  deal  over  the  certainty  that  Mr.  Harold  was 
''none  so  fond"  of  Jermyn,  but  this  was  a  subject  on 
which  Mrs.  Transome  had  never  made  up  her  mind  to 
speak,  and  Denner  knew  nothing  definite.  Again,  she  felt 
quite  sure  that  there  was  some  important  secret  connected 
with  Esther's  presence  in  the  house;  she  suspected  that  the 
close  Dominic  knew  the  secret,  and  was  more  trusted  than 
she  was,  in  spite  of  her  forty  years' service;  but  any  resent- 
ment on  this  ground  would  have  been  an  entertained 
reproach  against  her  mistress,  inconsistent  with  Denner's 
creed  and  character.  She  inclined  to  the  belief  that 
Esther  was  the  immediate  cause  of  the  new  discontent. 

''If  there's  anything  worse  coming  to  you,  I  should 
like  to  know  what  it  is,  madam,"  she  said,  after  a 
moment's  silence,  speaking  always  in  the  same  low  quick 
way,  and  keeping  up  her  quiet  labors.  "When  I  awake 
at  cock-crow,  I'd  sooner  have  one  real  grief  on  my  mind 
than  twenty  false.  It's  better  to  know  one's  robbed  than 
to  think  one's  going  to  be  murdered." 

"I  believe  you  are  the  creature  in  the  world  that  loves 
me  best,  Denner;  yet  you  v\'ill  never  understand  what  I 
suffer.  It's  of  no  use  telling  you.  There's  no  folly  in 
you,  and  no  heartache.  You  are  made  of  iron.  You 
have  never  had  any  trouble." 

"I've  had  some  of  vour  trouble,  madam." 

"Yes,  you  good  thing.  But  as  a  sick-nurse,  that  never 
caught  the  fever.     You  never  even  had  a  child." 

"  I  can  feel  for  things  I  never  went  through.  I  used  to 
be  sorry  for  the  poor  French  Queen  when  I  was  young: 
I'd  have  lain  cold  for  her  to  lie  warm.  I  know  people 
have  feelings  according  to  their  birth  and  station.  And 
you  always  took  things  to  heart,  madam,  beyond  anybody 
else.  But  I  hope  there's  nothing  new,  to  make  you  talk 
of  the  Avorst." 

"Yes,  Denner,  there  is  —  there  is,"  said  Mrs.  Transome, 


THE   RADICAL.  343 

speaking  in  a  low  tone  of  misery,  while  she  bent  for  her 
head-dress  to  be  pinned  on. 

"Is  it  this  young  lady?" 

"Why,  what  do  you  think  about  her,  Denner?"  said 
Mrs.  Transome,  in  a  tone  of  more  spirit,  rather  curious  to 
hear  what  the  old  woman  would  say. 

"1  don^t  deny  she's  graceful,  and  she  has  a  pretty  smile 
and  very  good  manners:  it's  quite  unaccountable  by  what 
Banks  says  about  her  father.  I  know  nothing  of  those 
Treby  townsfolk  myself,  but  for  my  part  I'm  puzzled. 
I'm  fond  of  Mr.  Harold.  I  alwaj's  shall  be,  madam.  I 
Avas  at  his  bringing  into  the  world,  and  nothing  but  nis 
doing  wrong  by  you  would  turn  me  against  him.  But  the 
servants  all  say  he's  in  love  with  Miss  Lyon." 

"I  wish  it  were  true,  Denner,"  said  ]\[rs.  Transome, 
energetically.  "I  wish  he  were  in  love  with  her,  so  that 
she  could  master  him,  and  make  him  do  what  she  pleased." 

"Then  it  is  not  true  —  what  they  say?" 

"Not  true  that  she  will  ever  master  him.  No  woman 
ever  will.  He  will  make  her  fond  of  him,  and  afraid  of 
him.  That's  one  of  the  things  you  have  never  gone 
through,  Denner.  A  woman's  love  is  always  freezing  into 
fear.  She  wants  everything,  she  is  secure  of  nothing. 
This  girl  has  a  fine  spirit  —  plenty  of  fire  and  pride  and 
wit.  Men  like  such  captives,  as  they  like  horses  that 
champ  the  bit  and  paw  the  ground:  they  feel  more 
triumph  in  their  mastery.  What  is  the  use  of  a  woman's 
will? — if  she  tries,  she  doesn't  get  it,  and  she  ceases  to 
be  loved.     God  was  cruel  when  he  made  women." 

Denner  was  used  to  such  outbursts  as  this.  Her  mis- 
tress's rhetoric  and  temper  belonged  to  her  superior 
rank,  her  grand  person,  and  her  piercing  black  eyes.  Mrs. 
Transome  had  a  sense  of  impiety  in  her  words  which 
made  them  all  the  more  tempting  to  her  impotent  anger. 
The  waiting-woman  had  none  of  that  awe  which  could  be 
turned  into  defiance:  the  Sacred  Grove  was  a  common 
thicket  to  her. 

"  It  mayn't  be  good-luck  to  be  a  woman,"  she  said. 
"But  one  begins  with  it  from  a  baby:  one  gets  used  to  it. 
And  I  shouldn't  like  to  be  a  man — to  cou  ghso  loud,  and 
stand  straddling  about  on  a  wet  day,  and  be  so  wasteful 
with  meat  and  drink.  They're  a"^  coarse  lot,  I  think. 
Then  I  needn't  make  a  trouble  of  this  young  lady, 
madam,"  she  added,  after  a  moment's  pause. 

"No,  Denner.     I  like  her.     If  that  were  all — I  shoulrt 


344  FELIX   HOLT, 

like  Harold  to  marry  her.  It  would  be  the  best  thing.  If 
the  truth  were  known — and  it  will  be  known  soon — the 
estate  is  hers  by  law — such  law  as  it  is.  It's  a  strange 
story:  she's  a  Bycliffe  really." 

Denner  did  not  look  amazed,  but  went  on  fastening  her 
mistress's  dress,  as  she  said — 

"  Well,  madam,  I  was  sure  there  was  something  wonder- 
ful at  the  bottom  of  it.  And  turning  the  old  lawsuits 
and  everything  else  over  in  my  mind,  I  thought  the  law 
might  have  something  to  do  with  it.  Then  she  is  a  born 
lady?" 

"Yes;  she  has  good  blood  in  her  veins." 

"  We  talked  that  over  in  the  housekeeper's  room — what 
a  hand  and  an  instep  she  has,  and  how  her  head  is  set  on 
her  shoulders — almost  like  your  own,  madam.  But  her 
lightish  complexion  spoils  her,  to  my  thinking.  And 
Dominic  said  Mr.  Harold  never  admired  that  sort  of 
woman  before.  There's  nothing  that  smooth  fellow 
couldn't  tell  you  if  he  would:  he  knows  the  answers  to 
riddles  before  they're  made.  However,  he  knows  how  to 
hold  his  tongue;  I'll  say  that  for  him.  And  so  do  I, 
madam." 

"Yes,  yes;  you  will  not  talk  of  it  till  other  people  are 
talking  of  it.'^ 

"  And  so,  if  Mr.  Harold  married  her,  it  would  save  all 
fuss  and  mischief  ?  " 

"Yes — about  the  estate." 

"And  he  seems  inclined;  and  she'll  not  refuse  him,  I'll 
answer  for  it.  And  you  like  her,  madam.  There's  every- 
thing to  set  your  mind  at  rest." 

Denner  was  putting  the  finishing-touch  -to  Mrs.  Tran- 
some's  dress  by  throwing  an  Indian  scarf  over  her  shoul- 
ders, and  so  comj)leting  the  contrast  between  the  majestic 
lady  in  costume  and  the  dishevelled  Hecuba-like  woman 
whom  she  had  found  half  an  hour  before. 

"I  am  not  at  rest!"  Mrs.  Transonic  said,  with  slow 
distinctness,  moving  from  the  mirror  to  the  window, 
where  the  blind  was  not  drawn  down,  and  she  could  see 
the  chill  white  landscape  and  the  far-ofi'  unheeding  stars. 

Denner,  more  distressed  by  her  mistress's  suffering  than 
she  could  have  been  by  anything  else,  took  up  with  the 
instinct  of  affection  a  gold  vinaigrette  which  Mrs.  Tran- 
some  often  liked  to  carry  with  her,  and  going  up  to  her 

Eut  it  into  her  hand  gently.     Mrs.  Transome  grasped  the 
ttle  woman's  hand  hard,  and  held  it  so. 


THE   EADICAL.  345 

t 

"Deuner/'  she  said,  in  a  low  tone,  ''if  I  could  choose 
at  this  moment,  I  would  choose  that  Harold  should  never 
have  been  born." 

"Nay  my  dear,"  (Denner  had  only  once  before  in  her 
life  said  ''my  dear  "  to  her  mistress),  "  it  was  a  happiness 
to  vou  then." 

"I  don't  believe  I  felt  the  happiness  then  as  I  feel  the 
misery  nov/.  It  is  foolish  to  say  people  can't  feel  much 
when  they  are  getting  old.  Not  pleasure,  perhaps — little 
comes.  But  they  can  feel  they  are  forsaken — why,  ever}^ 
fibre  in  me  seems  to  be  a  memory  that  makes  a  pang. 
They  can  feel  that  all  the  love  in  their  lives  is  turned  to 
hatred  or  contempt," 

"Not  mine,  madam,  not  mine.  Let  what  would  be,  I 
should  want  to  live  for  your  sake,  for  fear  you  should  have 
nobody  to  do  for  you  as  I  would." 

"  Ah,  then  you  are  a  happy  woman,  Denner;  you  have 
loved  somebody  for  forty  years  who  is  old  and  weak  now, 
and  can't  do  without  you." 

The  sound  of  the  dinner-gong  resounded  below,  and 
Mrs.  Transome  let  the  faithful  hand  fall  again. 


CHAPTER  XL. 


"  She's  beautiful ;  and  therefore  to  be  wooed : 
She  is  a  woman  ;  therefore  to  be  won." 

—Henry  VI. 

If  Denner  had  had  a  suspicion  that  Esther's  presence  at 
Transome  Court  was  not  agreeable  to  her  mistress,  it  was 
impossible  to  entertain  such  a  suspicion  with  regard  to  the 
other  members  of  the  family.  Between  her  and  little 
Harry  there  was  an  extraordinary  fascination.  This  creat- 
ure, with  the  soft,  broad,  brown  cheeks,  low  forehead, 
great  black  eyes,  tiny,  well-defined  nose,  fierce,  biting 
tricks  toward  every  person  and  thing  he  disliked,  and  in- 
sistence on  entirely  occupying  those  he  liked,  was  a  human 
specimen  such  as  Esther  had  never  seen  before,  and  she 
seemed  to  be  equally  original  in  Harry's  experience.  At 
first  sight  her  light  complexion  and  her  blue  gown, 
probably  also  her  sunny  smile  and  her  hands  stretched 
out  toward  him,  seemed  to  make  a  show  for  him  as 
of    a   new   sort   of    bird :    he    threw    himself    backward 


840  FELIX   HOLT, 

against  his  "  Gappa,"  as  he  called  old  Mr.  Transom e, 
and  stared  at  this  new  comer  with  the  gravity  of  a 
wild  animal.  But  she  had  no  sooner  sat  down  on  the 
sofa  in  the  library  than  he  climbed  up  to  her,  and 
began  to  treat  her  as  an  attractive  object  in  natural  his- 
tory, snatched  up  her  curls  with  his  brown  fist,  and,  dis- 
covering that  there  was  a  little  ear  under  them,  pinched  it 
and  blew  into  it,  pulled  at  her  coronet  of  plaits,  and 
seemed  to  discover  with  satisfaction  that  it  did  not  grow 
at  the  summit  of  her  head,  but  could  be  dragged  down 
and  altogether  undone.  Then  finding  that  she  laughed, 
tossed  him  back,  kissed,  and  pretended  to  bite  him — in 
fact,  was  an  animal  that  understood  fun — he  rushed  off  alid 
made  Dominic  bring  a  small  menagerie  of  white  mice, 
squirrels,  and  birds,  with  Moro,  the  black  spaniel,  to  make 
her  acquaintance.  Whomsoever  Harry  liked,  it  followed 
that  Mr.  Transome  must  like:  "  Gappa,"  along  with  Nim- 
rod  the  retriever,  was  part  of  the  menagerie,  and  perhaps 
endured  more  than  all  the  other  live  creatures  in  the  way 
of  being  tumbled  about.  Seeing  that  Esther  bore  having 
her  hair  |)ulled  down  quite  merrily,  and  that  she  was  will- 
ing to  be  harnessed  and  beaten,  the  old  man  began  to  con- 
fide to  her,  in  his  feeble,  smiling,  and  rather  jerking 
fashion,  Harry's  remarkable  feats:  how  he  had  one  day, 
when  Gappy  was  asleep,  unpinned  a  whole  drawerful  of 
beetles,  to  see  if  they  would  fly  away;  then,  disgusted  with 
their  stupidity,  was  about  to  throw  them  all  on  the  ground 
and  stamp  on  them,  when  Dominic  came  in  and  rescued 
these  valuable  specimens;  also,  how  he  had  subtly  watched 
Mrs.  Transome  at  the  cabinet  where  she  kept  her  medi- 
cines, and,  when  she  had  left  it  for  a  little  while  without 
locking  it,  had  gone  to  the  drawers  and  scattered  half  the 
contents  on  the  floor.  But  what  old  Mr.  Transome  thought 
the  most  wonderful  proof  of  an  almost  preternatural  clever- 
ness was,  that  Harry  would  hardly  ever  talk,  but  preferred 
making  inarticulate  noises,  or  combining  syllables  after  a 
method  of  his  own. 

"He  can  talk  well  enough  if  he  likes,"  said  Gappa,  evi- 
dently thinking  that  Harry,  like  the  monkeys,  had  deep 
reasons  for  his  reticence. 

"You  mind  him,"  he  added,  nodding  at  Esther,  and 
shaking  with  low-toned  laughter.  "  You'll  hear:  he  knows 
the  right  names  of  things  well  enough,  but  he  likes  to  make 
his  own.     He'll  give  you  one  all  to  yourself  before  long." 

Alid  when  Harry  seemed  to  have  made  up  his  mind  dip- 


THE  RADICAL.  347 

tinctly  that  Esther's  name  was  "  Boo,"  Mr.  Transome 
nodded  at  her  with  triumphant  satisfaction,  and  then  told 
her  in  a  low  whisper,  looking  round  cautiously  beforehand, 
that  Harry  would  never  call  Mrs.  Transome  ''Gamma/' 
but  always  "Bite." 

"It's  wonderful!"  said  he,  laughing  slyly. 
•  The  old  man  seemed  so  happy  now  in  the  new  world 
created  for  him  by  Dominic  and  Harry,  that  he  Avould  per- 
haps have  made  a  holocaust  of  his  flies  and  beetles  if  it 
had  been  necessary  in  order  to  keep  this  living,  lively  kind- 
ness about  him.  He  no  longer  confined  himself  to  the 
library,  but  shuffled  along  from  room  to  room,  staying  and 
looking  on  at  what  was  going  forward  whenever  he  did  not 
find  Mrs.  Transome  alone. 

To  Esther  the  sight  of  this  feeble-minded,  timid,  para- 
lytic man,  who  had  long  abdicated  all  mastery  over  the 
things  that  were  his,  was  something  piteous.  Certainly 
this  had  never  been  part  of  the  furniture  she  had  imagined 
for  the  delightful  aristocratic  dwelling  in  her  Utopia;  and 
the  sad  irony  of  such  a  lot  impressed  her  the  more  because 
:n  her  father  she  was  accustomed  to  age  accompanied  Avith 
mental  acumen  and  activity.  Her  thoughts  went  back  in 
conjecture  over  the  past  life  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Transome,  a 
couple  so  strangely  difterent  from  each  other.  She  found 
it  impossible  to  arrange  their  existence  in  the  seclusion  of 
this  fine  park  and  in  this  lofty  large-roomed  house,  where 
it  seemed  quite  ridiculous  to  be  anything  so  small  as  a 
human  being,  without  finding  it  rather  dull.  Mr.  Tran- 
some had  always  had  his  beetles,  but  Mrs.  Transome ? 

it  was  not  easy  to  conceive  that  the  husband  and  wife  had 
ever  been  very  fond  of  each  other. 

Esther  felt  at  her  ease  with  Mrs.  Transome:  slic  was 
gratified  by  the  consciousness — for  on  this  point  Esther 
was  very  quick — that  Mrs.  Transome  admired  her,  and 
looked  at  her  with  satisfied  eyes.  But  when  they  were 
together  in  the  early  days  of  her  stay,  the  conversation 
turned  chiefly  on  what  happened  in  Mrs.  Transome's 
youth — what  she  wore  when  she  was  presented  at  Court — 
who  were  the  most  distinguislied  and  beautiful  women  at 
that  time — the  terrible  excitement  of  tlie  French  Eevolu- 
tion — the  emigrants  she  had  known,  and  the  history  of 
various  titled  members  of  the  Lingon  family.  And  Esther, 
from  native  delicacy,  did  not  lead  to  more  recent  topics  of 
a  ])ersonal  kind.  She  was  copiously  instructed  that  the 
Lingon  family  was  })etter  tlian  that  even  of  the  elder 


348  FELIX  HOLT, 

Transom es,  and  was  privileged  witli  an  explanation  of  the 
various  quarterings,  wliich  proved  that  the  Lingon  blood 
had  been  continnally  enriched.  Poor  Mrs.  Transome, 
Avith  her  secret  bitterness  and  dread,  still  found  a  flavor 
in  this  sort  of  pride;  none  the  less  becanse  certain  deeds 
of  her  own  Irfe  had  been  in  fatal  inconsistency  with  it. 
Besides,  genealogies  entered  into  her  stock  of  ideas,  and 
her  talk  on  such  subjects  w^as  as  necessary  as  the  notes  of 
the  linnet  or  the  blackbird.  She  had  no  ultimate  analysis 
of  things  that  went  beyond  blood  and  family — the  Herons 
of  Fenshore  or  the  Badgers  of  Hillbnry.  She  had  never 
seen  behind  the  canvas  with  which  her  life  was  hung.  *  In 
the  dim  background  there  was  the  burning  mount  and 
the  tables  of  the  law;  in  the  foreground  there  was  Lady 
Debarry  privately  gossiping  about  her,  and  Lady  Wyvern 
.finally  deciding  not  to  send  her  invitations  to  dinner. 
Unlike  that  Semiramis  who  made  laws  to  suit  her  practical 
license,  she  lived,  poor  soul,  in  the  midst  of  desecrated 
sanctities,  and  of  honors  that  looked  tarnished  in  the 
light  of  monotonous  and  weary  suns.  Glimpses  of  the 
Lingon  heraldry  in  their  freshness  were  interesting  to 
Esther;  but  it  occurred  to  her  that  when  she  had  known 
about  them  a  good  while  they  would  cease  to  be  succulent 
themes  of  converse  or  meditation,  and  Mrs.  Transome, 
having  known  them  all  along,  might  have  felt  a  vacuum 
in  spite  of  them. 

Nevertheless  it  was  entertaining  at  present  to  be  seated 
on  soft  cushions  with  her  netting  before  her,  while  Mrs. 
Transome  went  on  with  her  embroidery,  and  told  in  that 
easy  phrase,  and  with  that  refined  high-bred  tone  and 
accent  which  she  possessed  in  perfection,  family  stories 
that  to  Esther  were  like  so  many  novelettes:  what  diamonds 
were  in  the  Earl's  family,  own  cousins  to  Mrs.  Transome; 
how  poor  Lady  Sara's  husband  went  off  into  jealous  mad- 
ness only  a  month  after  their  marriage,  and  dragged  that 
sweet  blue-eyed  thing  by  the  hair;  and  how  the  brilliant 
Fanny,  having  married  a  country  parson,  became  so  nig- 
gardly that  she  had  gone  about  almost  begging  for  fresh 
eggs  from  the  farmers'  wives,  though  she  had  done  very 
well  with  her  six  sons,  as  there  was  a  bisliop  and  no  end  of 
interest  in  the  family,  and  two  of  them  got  appointments 
in  India. 

At  present  Mrs.  Transome  did  not  touch  at  all  on  her 
own  time  of  privation,  or  her  troubles  with  her  eldest  son, 
or  on  anything  that  lay  very  close  to  her  heart.      She  con- 


THE   EADIOAL.  349 

versed  with  Esther,  and  acted  the  part  of  hostess  as  she 
performed  her  toilet  and  went  on  with  her  embroidery: 
these  tilings  were  to  be  done  whether  one  were  happy  or 
miserable.  Even  the  patriarch  Job,  if  he  had  been  a 
gentleman  of  the  modern  West,  would  have  avoided  pictur- 
esque disorder  and  poetical  laments;  and  the  friends  who 
called  on  him,  though  not  less  disjjosed  than  Bildad 
the  Shubite  to  hint  that  their  unfortunate  friend  was  in 
the  wrong,  would  have  sat  on  chairs  and  held  their  hats 
in  their  hands.  The  harder  problems  of  our  life  have 
changed  less  than  our  manners;  we  wrestle  with  the  old 
sorrows,  but  more  decorously.  Esther's  inexperience  pre- 
vented her  from  divining  much  about  this  fine  gray-haired 
woman,  whom  she  could  not  help  perceiving  to  stand 
apart  from  the  family  group,  as  if  there  were  some  cause 
of  isolation  for  her  both  within  and  without.  To  her 
young  heart  there  was  a  peculiar  interest  in  Mrs.  Tran- 
some.  An  elderly  woman,  whose  beauty,-  position,  and 
graceful  kindness  toward  herself,  made  deference  to  her 
spontaneous,  was  a  new  figure  in  Esther's  experience.  Her 
quick  light  movement  was  always  ready  to  anticipate  what 
Mrs.  Transonic  wanted;  her  bright  apprehension  and  silvery 
speech  were  always  ready  to  cap  Mrs.  Transome's  narra- 
tives or  instructions  even  about  doses  and  liniments,  with 
some  lively  commentary.  She  must  have  behaved  charm- 
ingly; for  one  day  when  she  had  tripped  across  the  room 
to  put  the  screen  just  in  the  right  place,  Mrs.  Transome 
said,  taking  her  hand,  "My  dear,  you  make  me  wish  I 
had  a  daughter!" 

That  was  pleasant;  and  so  it  was  to  be  decked  by  Mrs. 
Transome's  own  hands  in  a  set  of  turquoise  ornaments, 
which  became  her  wonderfully,  worn  with  a  white  Cash- 
mere dress,  which  was  also  insisted  on.  Esther  never 
reflected  that  there  was  a  double  intention  in  these 
pretty  ways  toward  her;  with  young  generosity,  she 
was  rather  preoccupied  by  the  desire  to  prove  that  she 
herself  entertained  no  low  triumph  in  the  fact  that  she 
had  rights  prejudicial  to  this  family  whose  life  she  was 
learning.  And  besides,  through  all  Mrs.  Transome's  per- 
fect manners  there  pierced  some  undefinable  indications 
of  a  hidden  anxiety  much  deeper  than  anything  she  could 
feel  about  this  affair  of  the  estate  —  to  which  she  often 
alluded  slightly  as  a  reason  for  informing  Esther  of  some- 
thing. It  was  impossible  to  mistake  her  for  a  happy 
woman;   and  young  speculation  is  always  stirred  by  dis- 


350  FELIX    HOLT, 

?ontent  for  which  there  is  no  obvious  cause.  When  we 
are  older,  we  take  tlie  uneasy  eyes  and  the  bitter  lips  more 
as  a  matter  of  course. 

But  Harold  Transome  was  more  communicative  about 
recent  years  than  his  mother  was.  He  thought  it  well 
that  Esther  should  know  how  the  fortune  of  his  family 
had  been  drained  by  law  expenses,  owing  to  suits  mis- 
takenly urged  by  her  family;  he  spoke  of  his  mother's 
lonely  life  and  pinched  circumstances,  of  her  lack  of  com- 
fort in  her  elder  son,  and  of  the  habit  she  had  conse- 
quently acquired  of  looking  at  the  gloomy  side  of  things. 
He  hinted  that  she  had  been  accustomed  to  dictate,  and 
that,  as  he  had  left  her  when  he  was  a  boy,  she  had  per- 
haps indulged  the  dream  that  he  would  come  back  a  boy. 
She  was  still  sore  on  the  point  of  his  politics.  These 
things  could  not  be  helped,  but  so  far  as  he  could,  he 
wished  to  make  the  rest  of  her  life  as  cheerful  as  possible. 

Esther  listened  eagerly,  and  took  these  things  to  heart. 
The  claim  to  an  inheritance,  the  sudden  discovery  of  a 
right  to  a  fortune  held  by  others,  was  acquiring  a  very 
distinct  and  unexpected  meaning  for  her.  Every  day  she 
was  getting  more  clearly  into  her  imagination  what  it 
would  be  to  abandon  her  own  past,  and  what  she  would 
enter  into  in  exchange  for  it;  what  it  would  be  to  disturb 
a  long  possession,  and  how  difficult  it  was  to  fix  a  point  at 
which  the  disturbance  might  begin,  so  as  to  be  contem- 
plated without  pain. 

Harold  Tran some's  thoughts  turned  on  the  same  sub- 
ject, but  accompanied  by  a  different  state  of  feeling  and 
with  more  definite  resolutions.  He  saw  a  mode  of  recon- 
ciling all  difficulties,  which  looked  pleasanter  to  him  the 
longer  he  looked  at  Esther.  When  she  h^td  been  hardly  a 
week  in  the  house,  he  had  made  up  his  mind  to  marry 
her:  and  it  had  never  entered  into  that  mind  that  the 
decision  did  not  rest  entirely  with  his  inclination.  It  was 
not  that  he  thought  slightly  of  Esther's  demands;  he  saw 
that  she  would  require  considerable  attractions  to  please 
her,  and  that  there  were  difficulties  to  be  overcome.  She 
Avas  clearly  ;i  girl  who  must  be  wooed;  but  Harold  did  not 
despair  of  presenting  the  requisite  attractions,  and  the 
difficulties  gave  more  interest  to  the  wooing  than  he  could 
have  believed.  Wlien  he  had  said  that  he  would  not 
marry  an  Englishwoman,  he  had  always  made  a  mental 
reservation  in  favor  of  peculiar  circumstances;  and  now 
the  peculiar  circumstances  were  come.     To  be  deeply  in 


THE    RADICAL.  351 

love  was  a  catastrophe  not  likely  to  happen  to  him;  but 
ne  was  readily  amorous.  No  woman  could  make  him 
miserable,  but  he  was  sensitive  to  the  presence  of  women, 
and  was  kind  to  them;  not  with  grimaces,  like  a  man 
of  mere  gallantry,  but  beamingly,  easily,  like  a  man  of 
genuine  good -nature.  And  each  day  he  was  near  Esther, 
the  solution  of  all  difficulties  by  marriage  became  a  more 
pleasing  prospect;  though  he  had  to  confess  to  himself 
that  the  difficulties  did  not  diminish  on  a  nearer  view,  in 
spite  of  the  flattering  sense  that  she  brightened  at  his 
approach. 

Harold  was  not  one  to  fail  in  a  purpose  for  want  of 
assiduity.  After  an  hour  or  two  devoted  to  business  in  the 
morning,  he  went  to  look  for  Esther,  and  if  he  did  not 
find  her  at  play  with  Harry  and  old  Mr.  Transonic,  or 
chatting  with  his  mother,  he  went  into  the  drawing-room, 
where  she  was  usual!}"  either  seated  with  a  book  on  her 
knee  and  ''making  a  bed  for  her  cheek"  v/ith  one  little 
hand,  while  she  looked  out  of  the  window,  or  else  standing 
in  front  of  one  of  the  full-length  family  portraits  with  an 
air  of  rumination.  Esther  found  it  imjjossible  to  read  in 
these  days;  her  life  was  a  book  which  she  seemed  herself 
to  be  constructing — trying  to  make  character  clear  before 
her,  and  looking  into  the  ways  of  destiny. 

The  active  Harold  had  almost  always  something  definite 
to  propose  by  way  of  filling  the  time;  if  it  were  fine,  she 
must  walk  out  with  him  and  see  the  grounds;  and  when 
the  snow  melted  and  it  was  no  longer  slippery,  she  must 
get  on  horseback  and  learn  to  ride.  If  they  staid  indoors, 
she  must  learn  to  play  at  billiards,  or  she  must  go  over  the 
house  and  see  the  pictures  he  had  had  hung  anew,  or  the 
costumes  he  had  brought  from  the  East,  or  come  into  his 
study  and  look  at  the  map  of  the  estate,  and  hear  what — 
if  it  had  remained  in  his  family — he  had  intended  to  do  in 
every  corner  of  it  in  order  to  make  the  most  of  its  capa- 
bilities. 

About  a  certain  time  in  the  morning  Esther  had  learned 
to  expect  him.  Let  every  wooer  make  himself  strongly 
expected;  he  may  succeed  by  dint  of  being  absent,  but 
hardly  in  the  first  instance.  One  morning  Harold  found 
her  in  the  drawing-room,  leaning  against  a  console-table, 
and  looking  at  the  full-lengt  li  portrait  of  a  certain  Lady 
Betty  Transome,  who  had  lived  a  century  and  a  half 
before,  and  had  the  usual  charm  of  ladies  in  Sir  Peter 
Lely's  style. 


352  FELIX   HOLT, 

''  Don't  move,  pray,"  he  said  on  entering;  "you  look  as 
if  you  were  standing  for  your  own  portrait." 

''  I  take  that  as  an  insinuation,"  said  Esther,  laughing, 
and  moving  toward  her  seat  on  an  ottoman  near  the  fire, 
"for  I  notice  almost  all  the  portraits  are  in  a  conscious, 
affected  attitude.  That  fair  Lady  Betty  looks  as  if  she 
had  been  drilled  into  that  posture,  and  had  not  will 
enough  of  her  own  ever  to  move  again  unless,  she  had  a 
little  push  given  to  her." 

"  She  brightens  up  that  panel  well  with  her  long  satin 
skirt,"  said  Harold,  as  he  followed  Esther,  "but  alive  I 
dare  say  she  would  have  been  less  cheerful  company." 

"  One  would  certainly  think  that  she  had  just  been 
unpacked  from  silver  paper.  Ah,  how  chivalrous  you 
as'e!"  said  Esther,  as  Harold,  kneeling  on  one  knee,  held 
her  silken  netting-stirrup  for  her  to  put  her  foot  through. 
She  had  often  fancied  pleasant  scenes  in  which  such 
homage  was  rendered  to  her,  and  the  homage  was  not  dis- 
agreeable now  it  was  really  come;  but,  strangely  enough, 
a  little  darting  sensation  at  that  moment  was  accompanied 
by  the  vivid  remembrance  of  some  one  who  had  never  paid 
the  least  attention  to  her  foot.  There  had  been  a  slight 
blush,  such  as  often  came  and  went  rapidly,  and  she  was 
silent  a  moment.  Harold  naturally  believed  that  it  was  he 
himself  who  was  filling  the  field  of  vision.  He  would  have 
liked  to  place  himself  on  the  ottoman  near  Esther,  and 
behave  very  much  more  like  a  lover;  but  he  took  a  chair 
opposite  to  her  at  a  circumspect  distance.  He  dared  not 
do  otherwise.  Along  with  Esther's  playful  charm  she  con- 
veyed an  impression  of  personal  pride  and  high  spirit 
which  warned  Harold's  acuteness  that  in  the  delicacy  of 
their  present  position  he  might  easily  make  a  false  move 
and  offend  her.  A  woman  was  likely  to  be  credulous  about 
adoration,  and  to  find  no  difficulty  in  referring  it  to  her 
intrinsic  attractions;  but  Esther  was  too  dangerously  quick 
and  critical  not  to  discern  the  least  awkwardness  that 
looked  like  offering  her  marriage  as  a  convenient  com- 
promise for  himself.  Beforehand,  he  might  have  said  that 
such  characteristics  as  hers  were  not  loveable  in  a  woman; 
but,  as  it  was,  he  found  that  the  hope  of  pleasing  her  had 
a  piquancy  quite  new  to  him. 

"I  wonder,"  said  Esther,  breaking  the  silence  in  her 
usual  light  silvery  tones — "I  wonder  whether  the  woman 
who  looked  in  that  way  ever  felt  any  troubles.  I  see  there 
are  two  old  ones  up~stairs  in  the  billiard-room  who  have 


THE    KADICAL.  353 

only  got  fat;  the  expression  of  their  faces  is  just  of  the 
same  sort.'" 

''A  woman  ought  never  to  have  any  trouble.  There 
should  alwa3^s  be  a  man  to  guard  her  from  it.  (Harold 
Trausome  was  masculine  and  fallible;  he  had  incautiously 
sat  down  this  morning  to  pay  his  addresses  by  talk  about 
nothing  in  particular;  and,  clever  experienced  man  as  he 
was,  he  fell  into  nonsense.) 

*'But  suppose  the  man  himself  got  into  trouble — you 
would  Avish  her  to  mind  about  that.  Or  suppose,"  added 
Esther,  suddenly  looking  up  merrily  at  Harold,  '*the  man 
himself  was  troublesome?" 

''  Oh,  you  must  not  strain  probabilities  in  that  way. 
The  generality  of  men  are  perfect.    Take  me,  for  example." 

"You  are  a  perfect  judge  of  sauces,"  said  Esther,  who 
had  her  triumphs  in  lettmg  Harold  know  that  she  was 
capable  of  taking  notes. 

"That  is 'perfection  number  one.     Pray  go  on." 

"Oh,  the  catalogue  is  too  long — I  should  be  tired  before 
I  got  to  your  magnificent  ruby  ring  and  your  gloves  always 
of  the  right  color." 

"  If  you  would  let  me  tell  you  your  perfections,  I  should 
not  be  tired." 

"That  is  not  complimentary;  it  means  that  the  list  is 
short. '" 

"No;  it  means  that  the  list  is  pleasant  to  dwell  upon." 

"Pray  don't  begin,"  said  Esther,  with  her  pretty  toss  of 
the  head;  "it  would  be  dangerous  to  our  good  understand- 
ing. The  person  I  liked  best  in  the  world  was  one  Avho 
did  nothing  but  scold  me  and  tell  me  of  my  faults." 

When  Esther  began  to  speak,  she  meant  to  do  no  more 
than  make  a  remote  unintelligible  allusion,  feeling,  it  must 
be  owned,  a  naughty  will  to  flirt  and  be  saucy,  and  thwart 
Harold's  attempts  to  be  felicitous  in  compliment.  But  she 
had  no  sooner  uttered  the  words  than  they  seemed  to  her 
like  a  confession.  A  deep  flush  spread  itself  over  her  face 
and  neck,  and  the  sense  that  she  was  blushing  went  on 
deepening  her  color.  Harold  felt  himself  unpleasantly 
illuminated  as  to  a  possibility  that  had  never  yet  occurred  to 
him.  His  surprise  made  an  yncomfortable  pause,  in  which 
Esther  had  time  to  feel  much  vexation. 

"You  speak  in  the  past  tense,"  said  Harold,  at  last; 
"  yet  I  am  rather  envious  of  that  person.  I  shall  never  be 
able  to  win  your  regard  in  the  same  way.  Is  it  anyone 
23 


354  FELIX   HOLT, 

at  Treby?    Because  in  that  case  I  can  inquire  about  your 
jatdts." 

"  Oh,  you  know  I  have  always  lived  among  grave  peo- 
ple," said  Esther,  more  able  to  recover  herself  now  she 
was  spoken  to.  "  Before  I  came  home  to  be  with  my  father 
I  Avas  nothing  but  a  school-girl  first,  and  then  a  teacher  in 
different  stages  of  growth.  People  in  those  circumstances 
are  not  usually  flattered.  But  there  are  varieties  in  fault- 
finding. At  our  Paris  school  the  master  I  liked  best  was 
an  old  man  Avho  stormed  at  me  terribly  when  I  read  Eacine, 
but  yet  showed  that  he  was  proud  of  me." 

Esther  was  getting  quite  cool  again.  But  Harold  was 
not  entirely  satisfied;  if  there  was  any  obstacle  in  his  way, 
he  wished  to  know  exactly  what  it  was. 

"That  must  have  been  a  wretched  life  for  you  at  Treby," 
he  said, — "a  person  of  your  accomplishments." 

"I  used  to  be  dreadfullv  discontented,"  said  Esther, 
much  occupied  with  mistakes  she  had  made  m  her  nettmg. 
"But  I  was  becoming  less  so.  I  have  had  time  to  get 
rather  wise,  you  know;  I  am  two-and- twenty." 

"  Yes,"  said  Harold,  rising  and  walking  a  few  paces 
backward  and  forward,  "you  are  past  your  majority;  you 
are  empress  of  your  own  fortunes — and  more  besides." 

"  Dear  me,"  said  Esther,  letting  her  work  fall,  and  lean- 
ing back  against  the  cushions;  "I  don't  think  I  know  very 
well  what  to  do  v/ith  my  empire." 

"Well,"  said  Harold,  pausing  in  front  of  her,  leaning 
one  arm  on  the  mantelpiece,  and  speaking  very  gravely, 
"I  hope  that  m  any  case,  since  you  appear  to  have  no  near 
relative  who  understands  affairs,  you  will  confide  in  me, 
and  trust  me  with  all  your  intentions  as  if  I  had  no  othei 
personal  concern  in  the  matter  tlian  a  regard  for  you.  I 
hope  you  believe  me  capable  of  acting  as  the  guardian  of 
your  interest,  even  where  it  turns  out  to  be  inevitably 
opposed  to  my  own." 

"I  am  sure  you  have  given  me  reason  to  believe  it," 
said  Esther,  with  seriousness,  putting  out  her  hand  to 
Harold.  She  had  not  been  left  in  ignorance  tliat  he 
had  had  opportunities  twice  offered  of  stiffling  her  claims. 

Harold  raised  the  hand  to  his  lips,  but  dared  not  retain 
it  more  than  an  instant.  Still  the  sweet  reliance  in  Esther's 
manner  made  an  irresistible  temptation  to  him.  After 
standing  still  a  moment  or  two,  while  she  bent  over  her 
work,  he  glided  to  the  ottoman  and  seated  himself  close 
by  her,  looking  at  her  busy  hands. 


THE   RADICAL.  355 

"1  see  you  have  made  mistakes  in  your  work,"  he  said, 
bending  still  nearer,  for  he  saw  that  she  was  conscious^, 
yet  not  angry. 

"Nonsense!  you  know  nothing  about  it,"  said  Esther, 
laughing,  and  crushing  up  the  soft  silk  under  her  palms. 
"Those  blunders  have  a  design  in  them." 

She  looked  round,  and  saw  a  handsome  face  very  near 
her.  Harold  was  looking,  as  he  felt,  thoroughly  enamored 
of  this  bright  woman,  who  was  not  at  all  to  his  precon- 
ceived taste.  Perhaps  a  touch  of  hypothetic  jealousy  now- 
helped  to  heigliten  the  effect.  But  he  mastered  all  indis- 
cretion, and  only  looked  at  her  as  he  said  — 

"I  am  w^ond'ering  whether  you  have  any  deep  wishes 
and  secrets  that  I  can't  guess," 

"  Pray  don't  speak  of  my  wishes,"  said  Estlier,  quite 
overmastered  by  this  new  and  apparently  involuntary 
manifestation  in  Harold;  "I  could  not  possibly  tell  you 
one  at  this  moment  —  I  think  I  shall  never  find  them  out 
again.  Oh,  yes,"  she  said,  abruptly,  struggling  to  relieve 
herself  from"^  the  oppression  of  unintelligible  feelings  — 
"  I  do  know  one  wish  distinctly.  I  want  to  go  and  see  my 
father.  He  writes  me  word  that  all  is  well  with  liim,  but 
still  I  want  to  sec  him." 

"You  shall  be  driven  there  when  you  like." 

"May  I  go  now  —  I  mean  as  soon  as  it  is  convenient?" 
said  Esther,  rising. 

"  I  will  give  tlie  order  immediately,  if  you  wish  it,"  said 
Harold,  understanding  that  the  audience  was  broken  up. 


CHAPTER  XLI. 

He  rates  me  as  the  merchant  does  the  wares 
He  will  not  purchase  -"qiuility  not  hlffh  ! 
'Twill  lose  its  color  opened  to  the  sun. 
Has  no  iiioma,  and,  in  fine,  is  naught— 
I  bart<n'  not  for  such  commodities- 
There  is  no  ratio  betwixt  sand  and  gems." 
'Tis  wicked  judsrment !  lor  the  soul  can  grow. 
As  embryos,  that  lixi;  and  move  but  blindly. 
Burst  Irom  the  dark,  emerge,  reg-enei-ate. 
And  lead  a  life  of  \  ision  and  of  choice. 

Esther  did  not  take  the  carriage  into  Malthouse  Lane, 
but  left  it  to  wait  for  her  outside  the  town;  and  when  she 
entered  the  house  she  put  her  linger  on  licr  lip  In  Lyddy 
and   ran    lightly  up-stairs.     She  wished    to   surprise    her 


356  PELIX   HOLT, 

father  by  this  visit,  and  she  sncceeded.  The  little  min- 
ister was  just  then  almost  surrounded  by  a  wall  of  books, 
with  merely  his  head  peeping  above  them,  being  much 
embarrassed  to  find  a  substitute  for  tables  and  desks  on 
which  to  arrange  the  volumes  he  kept  open  for  reference. 
He  was  absorbed  in  mastering  all  those -painstaking  inter- 
pretations of  the  Book  of  Dainel,  which  are  by  this  time 
well  gone  to  the  limbo  of  mistaken  criticism;  and  Esther, 
as  she  opened  the  door  softly,  heard  him  rehearsing  aloud 
a  passage  in  which  he  declared,  with  some  parenthetic  pro- 
visoes, that  he  conceived  not  how  a  perverse  ingenuity 
could  blunt  the  edge  of  prophetic  explicitness,,or  how  an 
open  mind  could  fail  to  see  in  the  chronology  of  "the 
little  horn"  the  resplendent  lamp  of  an  inspired  symbol 
searching  out  the  germinal  growth  of  an  anti-Christian 
power. 

"You  will  not  like  me  to  interrupt  you,  father?"  said 
Esther,  slvly. 

"Ah,  my'^beloved  child!  "  he  exclaimad,  upsetting  a  pile 
of  books,  and  thus  unintentionally  making  a  convenient 
breach  in  his  wall,  through  which  Esther  could  get  up  to 
him  and  kiss  him.  "Thy  appearing  is  as  a  joy  despaired 
of.  I  had  thought  of  thee  as  the  blinded  think  of  the  day- 
light— which  indeed  is  a  thing  to  rejoice  in,  like  all  other 
good,  though  we  see  it  not  nigh." 

"Are  you  sure  you  have  been  as  well  and  comfortable 
as  you  said  you  were  in  your  letters?"  said  Esther,  seating 
herself  close  in  front  of  her  father  and  laying  her  hand  on 
his  shoulder. 

"I  wrote  truly,  my  dear,  according  to  my  knowledge  at 
the  time.  But'  to  an  old  memory  like  mine  the  present 
days  are  but  as  a  little  water  poured  on  the  deep.  It 
seems  now  that  all  has  been  as  usual,  except  my  studies, 
which  have  gone  somewhat  curiously  into  prophetic  his- 
tory. But  I  fear  you  will  rebuke  me  for  my  negligent 
apparel,"  said  the  little  man,  feeling  in  front  of  Esther's 
brightness  like  a  bat  overtaken  by  the  morning. 

"That  is  Lyddy's  fault,  who  sits  crying  over  her  want 
of  Christian  assurance  instead  of  brushing  your  clothes  and 
putting  out  your  clean  cravat.  She  is  always  saying  her 
righteousness  is  filthy  rags,  and  really  I  don't  tliink  that 
is  a  very  strong  expression  for  it.  I'm  sure  it  is  dusty 
clothes  and  furniture." 

"Nay,  my  dear,  your  playfulness  glances  too  severely 
on  our  faithful  Lyddy.     Doubtless  I  am  myself  deficient, 


THE    RADICAL.  357 

in  that  I  do  not  aid  her  inlirm  memory  by  admonition. 
But  now  tell  me  aiiglit  that  you  have  left  untold  about 
yourself.  Your  heart  has  gone  out  somewhat  toward  this 
family — the  old  man  and  the  child,  whom  I  had  not  reck- 
oned of?" 

''Yes,  father.  It  is  more  and  more  difficult  to  me  to  see 
how  I  can  make  up  my  mind  to  disturb  these  people  at  all." 

"Something  should  doubtless  be  devised  to  lighten  the 
loss  and  the  change  to  the  aged  father  and  mother.  I 
would  have  you  in  any  case  seek  to  temper  a  vicissitude, 
which  is  nevertheless  a  j)rovidential  arrangement  not  to 
be  wholly  set  aside." 

"Do  you  think,  father — do  you  feel  assured  that  a  case 
of  mheritance  like  this  of  mine  is  a  sort  of  providential 
arrangement  that  makes  a  command?" 

"  I  have  so  held  it,"  said  Mr.  Lyon,  solemnly;  in  all  my 
meditations  I  have  so  held  it.  For  yon  have  to  consider, 
my  dear,  that  you  have  been  led  by  a  peculiar  path,  and 
into  experience  which  is  not  ordinarily  the  lot  of  those  who 
are  seated  in  high  places,  and  what  I  have  hinted  to  you 
already  in  my  letters  on  this  head,  I  shall  wish  on  a  future 
opportunity  to  enter  into  more  at  large." 

Esther  was  uneasily  silent.  On  this  great  question  of 
her  lot  she  saw  doubts  and  difficulties,  in  which  it  seemed 
as  if  her  father  could  not  help  her.  There  was  no  illumi- 
nation for  her  in  this  theory  of  providential  arrangement. 
She  said  suddenly  (what  she  had  not  thought  of  at  all 
suddenly) — 

"Have  you  been  again  to  see  Felix  Holt,  father?  You 
have  not  mentioned  hini  in  your  letters." 

"I  have  been  since  I  last  wrote,  my  dear,  and  I  took  his 
mother  with  me,  wlio,  I  fear,  made  the  time  heavy  to  him 
with  her  plaints.  But  afterward  I  carried  her  away  to  the 
house  of  a  brother  minister  at  Loamford,  and  returned  to 
Felix,  and  then  we  had  much  discourse." 

"Did  you  tell  him  of  everything  that  has  happened — I 
mean  about  me — about  the  Transomes?" 

"  Assuredly  I  told  him,  and  he  listened  as  one  aston- 
ished. For  he  had  much  to  hear,  knowing  naught  of  your 
birth,  and  that  you  had  any  other  father  thanEufus  Lyon. 
'Tis  a  narrative  I  trust  I  shall  not  be  called  on  to  give  to 
others ;  but  I  was  not  without  satisfaction  in  unfolding 
the  truth  to  this  young  man,  who  hath  wrought  himself 
into  my  affection  strangely — I  would  fain  hope  for  ends 


358  •  FELIX    HOLT, 

that  will  be  a  visible  good  in  his  less  way-worn  life,  when 
mine  shall  be  no  longer." 

"  And  you  told  him  how  the  Transomes  had  come,  and 
that  I  was  staying  at  Transome  Court?" 

"  Yes,  I  told  these  things  witli  some  particularity,  as  is 
my  wont  concerning  what  hath  imprinted  itself  on  my 
mind." 

"What  did  Felix  say?" 

"Truly,  my  dear,  nothing  deisirable  to  recite,"  said  Mr. 
Lyon,  rubbing  his  hand  over  his  brow. 

"Dear  father,  he  did  say  something,  and  you  always 
remember  what  people^  say.  Pray  tell  me;  I  want  to 
know." 

"It  was  a  hasty  remark,  and  rather  escaped  him  than 
was  consciously  framed.  He  said,  *  Then  she  will  marry 
Transome;  that  is  what  Transome  means.''" 

"That  was  all?"  said  Esther,  turning  rather  pale,  and 
biting  her  lip  with  the  determination  that  the  tears  should 
not  start. 

"Yes,  we  did  not  go  further  into  that  branch  of  the 
subject.  I  aijpreliend  there  is  no  v.arrant  for  his  seeming 
prognostic,  and  I  should  not  be  without  disquiet  if  I 
thought  otherwise.  For  I  confess  that  in  your  accession 
to  this  great  position  and  property,  I  contemplate  with 
hopeful  satisfaction  your  remaining  attached  to  that  body 
of  congregational  Dissent,  which,  as  I  hold,  hath  retained 
most  of  pure  and  primitive  discipline.  Your  education 
and  peculiar  history  would  thus  be  seen  to  have  coincided 
with  a  long  train  of  events  in  niak.ing  this  family  property 
a  mean  of  honoring  and  illustrating  a  purer  form  of 
Christianity  than  that  which  hath  unhappily  obtained  the 
pre-eminence  in  this  land.  I  speak,  my  child,  as  you 
know,  always  in  the  hoj^e  that  you  will  fully  join  our  com- 
munion; and  this  dear  wish  of  my  heart — nay,  this  urgent 
prayer — would  seem  to  be  frustrated  by  your  marriage 
with  a  man,  of  whom  there  is  at  least  no  visible  indication 
that  he  would  unite  himself  to  oiir  body." 

If  Esther  had  been  less  agitated,  she  would  hardly  have 
lielped  smiling  at  the  picture  her  father's  words  suggested 
of  Harold  Transome  "joining  the  church"  in  Malthouse 
Yard.  But  she  was  too  seriously  pre-occupied  with  what 
Felix  had  said,  which  hurt  her  in  a  two-edged  fashion 
that  was  highly  significant.  First,  she  was  very  angry 
with  him  for  daring  to  say  positively  whom  she  Avould 
marry;    and  secondly,  she  was  angry  at  the  implication 


THE    RADICAL.  359 

tJiat  there  was  from  the  first  a  cool  deliberate  design  in 
Harold  Transonie  to  marry  her.  Esther  said  to  herself 
that  she  was  quite  capable  of  discerning  Harold  Tran- 
some's  disposition,  and  judging  of  his  conduct.  She  felt 
sure  he  was  generous  and  open.  It  did  not  lower  him  in 
her  opinion  that  since  circumstances  had  brought  them 
together  he  evidently  admired  her — was  in  love  with  her — 
in  short,  desired  to  marry  her;  and  she  thought  that  she 
discerned  the  delicacy  which  hindered  him  from  being 
more  explicit.  There  is  no  point  on  which  young  women 
are  more  easily  piqued  than  this  of  their  sufficiency  to 
judge  the  men  who  make  love  to  them.  And  Esther^s 
generous  nature  delighted  to  believe  in  generosity.  All 
these  thoughts  were  making  a  tumult  in  her  mind  while 
her  father  Avas  suggesting  the  radiance  her  lot  might  cast 
on  the  cause  of  congregational  Dissent.  She  heard  what 
he  said,  and  remembered  it  afterward,  but  she  made  no 
reply  at  present,  and  chose  rather  to  start  up  in  search  of 
a  brush — an  action  which  would  seem  to  her  father  quite 
a  usual  sequence  with  her.  It  served  the  purpose  of 
diverting  him  from  a  lengthy  subject. 

-'  Have  you  yet  spoken  with  Mr.  Transome  concerning 
Mrs.  Holt,  my  dear?"  he  said,  as  Esther  was  moving  about 
the  room.  "  I  hinted  to  him  that  you  would  best  decide 
liow  assistance  should  be  tendered  to  her." 

"  No,  father,  we  have  not  approached  the  subject.  Mr. 
Transome  may  have  forgotten  it,  and,  for  several  reasons, 
I  would  rather  not  talk  of  this — of  money  matters  to  him 
ftt  present.  There  is  money  due  to  me  from  the  Lukyns 
and  the  Pcndrells." 

''They  have  paid  it,"  said  Mr.  Lyon,  opening  his  desk. 
"  I  have  it  here  ready  to  deliver  to  you." 

"Keep  it,  father,  and  pay  Mrs.  Holt's  rent  with  it,  and 
do  anything  else  that  is  wanted  for  her.  We  must  consider 
everything  temporary  now,"  said  Esther,  enveloping  her 
father  in  a  towel,  and  beginning  to  brush  his  auburn  fringe 
of  hair,  while  he  shut  his  eyes  in  preparation  for  this  jDleas- 
ant  passivity.  "Everything  is  uncertain  —  what  may 
become  of  Felix — what  may  become  of  us  all.  Oh,  dear!" 
she  went  on,  changingsuddenly  to  laughing  merriment,  "I 
am  beginning  to  talk  like  Lyddy,  I  think." 

"Truly,"  said  Mr.  Lyon,  smiling,  "the  uncertainty  of 
things  is  a  text  rather  too  wide  and  obvious  for  fruitful 
application;  and  to  discourse  of  it  is,  as  one  may  say,  to 


360  FELIX   HOLT, 

bottle  up  the  air,  and  make  a  present  of  it  to  those  who  are 
already  standing  out  of  doors." 

"  Do  you  think/'  said  Esther,  in  the  course  of  their  chat, 
"  that  the  Treby  people  know  at  all  about  the  reasons  of 
my  being  at  Transome  Court?" 

"  I  have  had  no  sign  thereof:  and  indeed  there  is  no  one, 
as  it  appears,  who  could  make  the  story  public.  The  man 
Gliristian  is  away  in  London  with  Mr.  Debarry,  Parliament 
now  beginning;  and  Mr.  Jermyn  would  doubtless  respect 
the  confidence  of  the  Transomes.  I  have  not  seen  him 
lately.  I  know  nothing  of  his  movements.  And  so  far  as 
my  oAvn  speech  is  concerned,  and  my  strict  command  to 
Lyddy,  I  have  withheld  the  means  of  information  even  as 
to  your  having  returned  to  Transome  Court  in  the  carriage, 
not  wishing  to  give  any  occasion  to  solicitous  questioning 
till  time  hath  somewhat  inured  me.  But  it  hath  got  abroad 
that  you  are  there,  and  is  the  subject  of  conjectures, 
whereof,  I  imagine,  the  chief  is,  that  you  are  gone  as  com- 
panion to  Mistress  Transome;  for  some  of  our  friends  have 
already  hinted  a  rebuke  to  me  that  I  should  permit  your 
taking  a  position  so  little  likely  to  further  your  spiritual 
welfare." 

''Now,  father,  I  think  I  shall  be  obliged  to  run  away 
from  you,  not  to  keep  the  carriage  too  long,"  said  Esther, 
as  she  finished  her  reforms  on  the  minister's  toilet,  "  You 
look  beautiful  now,  and  I  must  give  Lyddy  a  little  lecture 
before  I  go." 

*' Yes,  my  dear;  I  would  not  detain  you,  seeing  that  my 
duties  demand  me.  But  take  with  you  this  Treatise,  which 
I  have  purposely  selected.  It  concerns  all  the  main  ques- 
tions between  ourselves  and  the  Establishment — govern- 
ment, discipline,  State-support.  It  is  seasonable  that  you 
should  give  a  nearer  attention  to  these  polemics,  lest  you 
be  drawn  aside  by  the  fallacious  association  of  a  State 
Church  with  elevated  rank." 

Esther  chose  to  take  the  volume  submissively,  rather 
than  to  adopt  the  ungraceful  sincerity  of  saying  that  she 
Avas  unable  at  present  to  give  her  mind  to  the  original 
functions  of  a  bishop  or  the  comparative  merit  of  Endow- 
ments and  Voluntaryism.  But  she  did  not  run  her  eyes 
over  the  pages  during  her  solitary  drive  to  get  a  foretaste 
of  the  argument,  for  she  was  entirely  occupied  with  Felix 
Holt's  prophecy  that  she  would  marry  Harold  Transome. 


THE   EADICAL.  361 


CHAPTER  XLII. 

Thou  sayst  it,  and  not  I ;  for  thou  hast  done 
The  ugly  deed  that  made  these  ugly  words. 

Sophocles:  Electro. 

Yea,  it  becomes  a  man 
To  cherish  memory,  where  he  had  delight. 
For  kindness  is  the  natural  birth  of  kindness. 
Whose  soul  records  not  the  gi-eat  debt  of  joy. 
Is  stamped  for  ever  an  ignoble  man. 

Sophocles:  Ajax. 

It  so  happened  that,  on  the  morning  of  the  day  when 
Esther  went  to  see  her  father,  Jermyn  had  not  yet  heard  of 
her  pi-esence  at  Transome  Court.  One  fact  conducing  to 
keep  him  in  this  ignorance  was,  that  some  days  after  his 
critical  interview  with  Harold  —  days  during  which  he  had 
been  wondering  how  long  it  would  be  before  Harold  made 
up  his  mind  to  sacrifice  the  luxury  of  satisfied  anger  for  the 
solid  advantage  of  securing  fortune  and  position  —  he 
was  peremptorily  called  away  by  business  to  the  south  of 
England,  and  Avas  obliged  to  inform  Harold  by  letter  of  his 
absence.  He  took  care  also  to  notify  his  return  ;  but 
Harold  made  no  sign  in  reply.  The  days  passed  without 
bringing  him  any  gossip  concerning  Esther's  visit,  for  such 
gossip  was  almost  confined  to  Mr.  Lyon^s  congregation,  her 
church  pupils,  Miss  Louisa  Jermyn  among  them,  having 
been  satisfied  by  her  father's  written  statement  that  she 
was  gone  on  a  visit  of  uncertain  duration.  But  on  this  day 
of  Esther's  call  in  Malthouse  Yard,  the  Miss  Jermyns  in 
their  walk  saw  her  getting  into  the  Transome's  carriage, 
which  they  had  previously  observed  to  be  waiting,  and 
which  they  now  saw  bowled  along  on  the  road  toward 
Little  Treby.  It  followed  that  only  a  few  hours  later  the 
news  reached  the  astonished  ears  of  Matthew  Jermyn. 

Entirely  ignorant  of  those  converging  indications  and 
small  links  of  incident  which  had  raised  Christian's  con- 
jectures, and  had  gradually  contril)uted  to  put  him  in 
possession  of  the  facts;  ignorant  too  of  some  busy  motives 
in  the  mind  of  his  obliged  servant  Johnson;  Jermyn  was 
not  likely  to  see  at  once  how  the  momentous  information 
that  Esther  was  the  surviving  Bycliffe  could  possibly  have 
reached  Harold.  His  daughters  naturally  leaped,  as  others 
had  done,  to  the  conclusion  that  the  Transomes,  seeking  a 
governess  for  little  Harry,  had  had  their  choice  directed 
to  Esther,  and  observed  that  they  must  have  attracted  her 


362  FELIX    HOLT, 

by  a  high  salary  to  induce  her  to  take  charge  of  such  a 
small  pupil;  though  of  course  it  was  important  that  his 
English  and  French  should  be  carefully  attended  to  from 
the^first,  Jermyn,  hearing  this  suggestion,  was  not  with- 
out a  momentary  hope  that  it  might  be  true,  and  that 
Harold  was  still  safely  unconscious  of  having  under  the 
same  roof  with  him  the  legal  claimant  of  the  family 
estate. 

But  a  mind  in  the  grasp  of  a  terrible  anxiety  is  not 
credulous  of  easy  solutions.  The  one  stay  that  bears  up 
our  hopes  is  sure  to  appear  frail,  and  if  looked  at  long 
will  seem  to  totter.  Too  much  depended  on  that  uncon- 
sciousness of  Harold's;  and  although  Jermyn  did  not  see 
(he  course  of  things  that  could  have  disclosed  and  com- 
bined the  various  items  of  knowledge  which  he  had 
imagined  to  be  his  own  secret,  and  therefore  his  safe- 
guard, he  saw  quite  clearly  wliat  was  likely  to  be  the 
result  of  the  disclosure.  Not  only  would  Harold  Tran- 
some  be  no  longer  afraid  of  him,  but  also,  by  marrying 
Esther  (and  Jermyn  at  once  felt  sure  of  this  issue),  he 
would  be  triumphantly  freed  from  any  unpleasant  conse- 
quences, and  could  pursue  much  at  his  ease  the  gratification 
of  ruining  Matthew  Jermyn.  The  prevision  of  an  enemy's 
triumphant  ease  is  in  any  case  sufficiently  irritating  to 
hatred,  and  there  were  reasons  why  it  was  peculiarly  exas- 
perating here;  but  Jermyn  had  not  the  leisure  now  for 
mere  fruitless  emotion :  he  had  to  think  of  a  possible 
device  which  might  save  him  fronr  imminent  ruin  — 
not  an  indefinite  adversity,  but  a  ruin  in  detail,  which 
his  thoughts  painted  out  with  the  sharpest,  ugliest  inten- 
sity. A  man  of  sixty,  with  an  unsuspicious  wife  and 
daughters  capable  of  shrieking  and  fainting  at  a  sudden 
revelation,  and  of  looking  at  him  reproachfully  in  their 
daily  misery  under  a  shabby  lot  to  which  he  had  reduced 
them  —  with  a  mind  and  with  habits  dried  hard  by  tl\(' 
years — with  no  glimpse  of  an  endurable  standing-ground 
except  where  he  could  domineer  and  be  prosperous  according 
to  the  ambitions  of  pushing  middle-class  gentility, — such  a 
man  is  likely  to  find  the  prospect  of  worldly  ruin  ghastly 
enough  to  drive  him  to  the  most  uninviting  means  of 
escape.  He  will  probably  prefer  any  private  scorn  that 
will  save  him  from  public  infamy  or  that  will  leave  him 
with  money  in  his  pocket,  to  the  humiliation  and  hardship 
of  new  servitude  in  old  age,  a  shabby  hat  and  a  melan- 
choly hearth,  where  the  firing  must  be  used  charily  and 


THE   RADICAL.  363 

the  women  look  sad.  But  though  a  man  may  be  willing 
to  escape  through  a  sewer,  a  sewer  with  an  outlet  into  the 
dry  air  is  not  always  at  hand.  Running  awaj',  especially 
when  spoken  of  as  absconding,  seems  at  a  distance  to  offer 
a  good  modern  substitute  for  the  right  of  sanctuary;  but 
seen  closely,  it  is  often  found  inconvenient  and  scarcely 
possible. 

Jermyn,  on  thoroughly  considering  his  position,  saw 
that  he  had  no  very  agreeable  resources  at  command.  But 
he  soon  made  up  his  mind  what  he  would  do  next.  He 
wrote  to  Mrs.  Trausome  requesting  her  to  appoint  an  hour 
in  which  he  could  see  her  privately:  he  knew  she  Avould 
understand  that  it  was  to  be  an  hour  when  Harold  was  not 
at  home.  As  he  sealed  the  letter,  he  indulged  a  faint  hope 
that  in  this  interview  he  might  be  assured  of  Esther's  birth 
being  unknown  at  Transome  Court;  but  in  the  worst  case, 
perhaps  some  help  might  be  found  in  Mrs.  Transome. 
To  such  uses  may  tender  relations  come  when  they  have 
ceased  to  be  tender!  The  Hazaels  of  our  world  who  are 
pushed  on  quickly  against  their  preconceived  confidence 
in  themselves  to  do  doglike  actions  by  the  sudden  sug- 
gestion of  a  wicked  ambition,  are  much  fewer  than  those 
who  are  led  on  through  the  years  by  the  gradual  demands 
of  a  selfishness  which  has  spread  its  fibres  far  and  wide 
through  the  intricate  vanities  and  sordid  cares  of  an 
every-day  existence. 

In  consequence  of  that  letter  to  Mrs.  Transome,  Jermyn 
was,  two  days  afterward,  ushered  into  the  smaller  draw- 
ing-room at  Transome  Court.  It  was  a  charming  little 
room  in  its  refurbished  condition:  it  had  two  pretty  inlaid 
cabinets,  great  china  vases  with  contents  tliat  sent  forth 
odors  of  paradise,  groups  of  flowers  in  oval  frames  on  the 
walls,  and  Mrs.  Transome's  own  portrait  in  the  evening 
costume  of  1800,  with  a  garden  in  the  background.  Thai 
brilliant  young  woman  looked  smilingly  down  on  Mr. 
Jermyn  as-  he  passed  in  front  of  the  fire;  and  at  presejit 
hers  was  the  only  gaze  in  the  room.  He  could  not  help 
meeting  the  gaze  as  he  waited,  holding  his  hat  behind 
iiiiia — could  not  helo  seeing  manv  memories  lit  un  bv  u. 
GUI  ine  strong  Dent  or  nis  mma  was  to  go  on  arguing  eacii 
memory  into  a  claim,  and  to  see  in  the  regard  others  liiid 
for  him  a  merit  of  his  own.  There  had  been  plenty  of 
roads  open  to  him  when  he  was  a  young  man;  perhaps  if 
he  had  not  allowed  himself  to  be  determined  (chiefly,  of 
course,  by  the  feelings  of  others,  for  of  what  effect  would 


364  FELIX    HOLT, 

his  own  feelings  have  been  without  them?)  into  the  road 
he  actually  took,  he  might  have  done  better  for  himself. 
At  any  rate,  he  was  likely  at  last  to  get  the  worst  of  it, 
and  it  was  he  who  had  most  reason  to  complain.  The 
fortunate  Jason,  as  we  know  from  Euripides,  piously 
tlianked  the  goddess,  and  saw  clearly  that  he  was  not  at 
all  obliged  to  Medea;  Jermyn  was,  perhaps,  not  aware  of 
the  precedent,  but  tiiought  out  his  own  freedom  from 
obligation  and  the  indebtedness  of  others  toward  him  with 
a  native  faculty  not  inferior  to  Jason's. 

Before  three  minutes  had  passed,  however,  as  if  by  some 
sorcery,  the  brilliant  smiling  young  woman  above  the 
mantelpiece  seemed  to  be  appearing  at  the  doorway  with- 
ered and  frosted  by  many  winters,  and  with  lips  and  eyes 
from  which  the  smile  had  departed.  Jermyn  advanced, 
and  they  shook  hands,  but  neither  of  them  said  anything 
by  way  of  greeting.  Mrs.  Trausome  seated  herself,  and 
pointed  to  a  chair  opposite  and  near  her. 

''Harold  has  gone  to  Loamford,"  she  said,  in  a  subdued 
tone.     ''You  had  something  particular  to  say  to  me?'' 

"Yes,"  said  Jermyn,  with  his  soft  and  deferential  air. 
"  The  last  time  I  was  here  I  could  not  take  the  opportu- 
nity of  speaking  to  you.  But  I  am  anxious  to  knoAv 
whetlier  you  are  aware  of  what  has  passed  between  me  and 
Harold?" 

"Yes,  he  has  told  me  everything." 

"About  his  proceedings  against  me?  and  the  reason  he 
stopped  them?" 

"Yes:  have  you  had  notice  that  he  has  begun  them 
again?" 

"No,"  said  Jermyn,  with  a  very  unpleasant  sensation. 

"  Of  course  he  will  now,"  said  Mrs.  Transome.  "There 
is  no  reason  in  his  mind  why  he  should  not," 

"Has  he  resolved  to  risk  the  estate  then?" 

"  He  feels  in  no  danger  on  that  score.  And  if  there 
were,  the  danger  doesn't  depend  on  you.  The  most  likely 
thing  is,  that  he  will  marry  this  girl." 

"He  knows  everything  then?"  said  Jermyn,  the  expres- 
sion of  his  face  getting  clouded. 

"Everything.  It's  of  no  use  for  you  to  think  of  master- 
ing him:  you  can't  do  it.  I  used  to  wish  Harold  to  be 
fortunate,  and  he  is  fortunate,"  said  Mrs.  Transome,  with 
intense  bitterness.     "It's  not  my  star  that  he  inherits." 

"Do  you  know  how  he  came  by  the  information  about 
this  girl?" 


IHB   RADICAL,  365 

''No;  but  she  knew  it  all  before  we  spoke  to  her.  It's 
no  secret." 

Jermyn  was  confounded  by  this  hopeless  frustration  to 
which  he  had  no  key.  Though  lie  thought  of  Christian, 
the  thought  shed  no  light;  but  the  more  fatal  point  was 
clear:  he  held  no  secret  that  could  help  him. 

"  You  are  aware  that  these  chancery  proceedings  may 
ruin  me?" 

"  He  told  me  they  would.  But  if  you  are  imagining  1 
can  do  anything,  dismiss  the  notion.  I  have  told  him  as 
plainly  as  I  dare  that  I  wish  him  to  drop  all  jDublic  quarrel 
with  you,  and  that  you  could  make  an  arrangement  with- 
out scandal.  I  can  do  no  more.  He  will  not  listen  to 
me;  he  doesn't  mind  about  my  feelings.  He  cares  more 
for  Mr.  Transome  than  he  does  for  me.  He  will  not  lis- 
ten to  me  any  more  than  if  I  were  an  old  ballad-singer." 

"It's  very  hard  on  me,  I  know,"  said  Jermyn,  in  the 
tone  with  which  a  man  flings  out  a  reproach. 

"I  besought  you  three  months  ago  to  bear  anything 
rather  than  quarrel  with  him." 

"I  have  not  quarreled  with  him.  It  is  he  who  has 
been  always  seeking  a  quarrel  with  me.  I  have  borne  a 
good  deal  —  more  than  any  one  else  would.  He  set  his 
teeth  against  me  from  the  first." 

''He  saw  things  that  annoyed  him;  and  men  are  not 
like  women,"  said  Mrs.  Transome.  There  was  a  bitter 
innuendo  in  that  truism. 

"It's  very  hard  on  me  —  I  know  that,"  said  Jermyn, 
with  an  intensification  of  his  previous  tone,  rising  and 
walking  a  step  or  two,  then  turning  and  laying  his  hand 
on  the  back  of  the  chair.  "Of  course  the  law  in  this 
case  can't  in  the  least  represent  the  justice  of  the  matter. 
I  made  a  good  many  sacrifices  in  times  past.  I  gave  up  a 
great  deal  of  fine  business  for  the  sake  of  attending  to  the 
family  affairs,  and  in  that  lawsuit  they  would  have  gone 
to  rack  and  ruin  if  it  hadn't  been  for  me." 

He  moved  away  again,  laid  down  his  hat,  v/hich  he  had 
been  previously  holding,  and  thrust  his  hands  into  his 
pockets  as  he  returned.  Mrs.  Transome  sat  motionless  as 
marble,  and  almost  as  pale.  Her  hands  lay  crossed  on  lier 
knees.  This  man,  young,  slim,  and  graceful,  witli  a 
selfishness  Avhich  then  took  the  form  of  homage  to  her, 
had  at  one  time  kneeled  to  her  and  kissed  those  hands 
fervently,  and  she  had  thought  there  was  a  poetry  in  such 
passion  beyond  any  to  be  found  in  everyday  domesticitj- 


366  FELIX    HOLT, 

"I  stretched  my  conscience  a  good  deal  in  that  affair  of 
B^-cliffe,  as  you  know  perfectly  "well.  I  told  you  every- 
thing at  the  time.  I  told  you  I  was  A'ery  uneasy  about 
those  witnesses,  and  about  getting  him  thrown  into  prison. 
I  know  it's  the  blackest  thing  anybody  could  charge  me 
with,  if  they  knew  my  life  from  beginning  to  end;  and  I 
s])ould  never  have  done  it,  if  I  had  not  been  under  an 
infatuation  such  as  makes  a  man  do  anything.  What  did 
it  signify  to  me  about  the  loss  of  the  lawsuit?  I  was  a 
young  bachelor — I  had  the  world  before  me.'' 

''Yes,"  said  Mrs.  Transonic,  in  a  low  tone.  "It  was  a 
pity  you  didn't  make  another  choice," 

"What  would  have  become  of  you?"  said  Jermyn, 
carried  along  a  climax,  like  other  self-justifiers.  "I  had 
to  think  of  you.  You  would  not  have  liked  me  to  make 
another  choice  then." 

"Clearly,"  said  Mrs.  Transonic,  with  concentrated  bit- 
terness, ]m{  still  quietly;  "the  greater  mistake  was  mine." 

Egoism  is  usually  stupid  in  a  dialogue;  but  Jermyn's 
did  not  make  him  so  stupid  that  he  did  not  feel  the  edge 
of  Mrs.  Transome's  words.     They  increased  his  irritation. 

"I  hardly  see  that,"  he  replied,  with  a  slight  laugh  of 
scorn.  "You  had  an  estate  and  a  position  to  save,  to  go 
no  farther,  I  remember  very  well  what  you  said  to  me  — 
'A  clever  lawyer  can  do  anything  if  he  has  the  will;  if  it's 
impossible,  he  will  make  it  possible.  And  the  property  is 
sure  to  be  Harold's  some  day.'     He  was  a  baby  then." 

"I  remember  most  things  a  little  too  well;  you  had 
better  say  at  once  what  is  your  object  in  recalling  them." 

"  An  object  that  is  nothing  more  than  justice.  With 
the  relation  I  stood  in,  it  was  not  likely  I  should  think 
myself  bound  by  all  the  forms  that  are  made  to  bind 
strangers.  I  had  often  immense  trouble  to  raise  the 
money  necessary  to  pay  off  debts  and  carry  on  the  affairs; 
and,  as  I  said  before,  I  had  given  up  other  lines  of 
advancement  which  would  have  been  open  to  me  if  I  had 
not  stayed  in  this  neighborhood  at  a  critical  time  when  I 
was  fresh  to  the  world.  Anybody  who  knew  the  whole 
circumstances  would  say  that  my  being  hunted  and  run 
down  on  the  score  of  my  past  transactions  with  regard  to 
the  family  affairs,  is  an  abominably  unjust  and  unnatural 
thing." 

Jermyn  paused  a  moment,  and  then  added,  "At  my 
time  of  life and  with  a  family  about  me and  after 


THE    RADICAL.  36? 

what   has   passed 1  should   have  thought   there   Avas 

nothing  you  would  care  more  to  jDrevent." 

"  I  do  care.  It  inakes  me  miserable.  That  is  the  ex- 
tent of  my  power — to  feel  miserable." 

"  No,  it  is  not  the  extent  of  your  power.  You  could 
save  me  if   you  would.     It  is  not  to  be   supposed   that 

Harold  would  go  on  against  me if  he  knew  the  whole 

truth." 

Jermyn  had  sat  down  before  he  uttered  the  last  words, 
lie  had  lowered  his  voice  slightly.  He  had  the  air  of 
one  who  thouglit  that  he  had  prepared  the  way  for  an 
understanding.  That  a  man  with  so  much  sharpness, 
v/ith  so  much  suavity  at  command — a  man  who  piqued 
himself  on  his  persuasiveness  toward  Avomen  —  should 
behave  just  as  Jermyn  did  on  this  occasion,  would  be 
surprising,  but  for  the  constant  experience  that  temper 
and  selfish  insensibility  will  defeat  excellent  gifts — will 
make  a  sensible  person  shout  when  shouting  is  out  of 
place,  and  will  make  a  polished  man  rude  when  his  polish 
might  be  of  eminent  use  to  him. 

As  Jermyn,  sitting  down  and  leaning  forward  with  an 
elbow  on  his  knee,  uttered  his  last  words — *''if  he  knew 
the  whole  truth"  —  a  slight  shock  seemed  to  pass  through 
Mrs.  Transome's  hitherto  motionless  body,  followed  by  a 
sudden  light  in  her  eyes,  as  in  an  animal's  about  to  spring. 

"And  you  expect  me  to  tell  him?"  she  said,  not  loudly, 
but  yet  with  a  clear  metallic  ring  in  her  voice. 

"Would  it  not  be  right  for  him  to  know?"  said  Jermyn, 
in  a  more  bland  and  persuasive  tone  than  he  had  yet  used. 

Perhaps  some  of  the  most  terrible  irony  of  the  human 
lot  is  this  of  a  deep  truth  coming  to  be  uttered  by  lips  that 
have  no  right  to  it. 

"I  will  never  tell  him!"  said  Mrs.  Transome,  starting 
up,  her  whole  frame  thrilled  with  a  passion  that  scemecl 
almost  to  make  her  young  again.  Her  hands  hung  beside 
her  clenched  tightly,  her  eyes  and  lips  lost  the  lielpless 
repressed  bitterness  of  discontent,  and  seemed  suddenly  fed 
with  energy.  •'  You  reckon  up  your  sacrifices  for  me:  you 
have  kept  a  good  account  of  them,  and  it  is  needful;  they 
are  some  of  them  Avhat  no  one  else  could  guess  or  find  out. 
But  you  made  your  sacrifices  when  they  seemed  pleasant 
to  you;  when  you  told  me  they  were  your  happiness;  when 
you  told  me  that  it  was  I  who  stooped,  and  Iwho  bestowed 
favors. " 

Jermyn  rose  too,  and  laid  his  hand  on  the  back  of  th© 


368  FELIX    HOLT, 

chair.  He  had  grown  visibly  paler,  but  seemed  about  to 
speak. 

"Don't  speak!''  Mrs.  Transome  said  peremptorily. 
"Don't  open  your  lips  again.  You  have  said  enough;  I 
will  speak  now.  I  have  made  sacrifices  too,  but  it  was 
when  I  knew  that  they  were  not  my  happiness.  It  was 
after  I  saw  that  I  had  stooped  — after  I  saw  that  your  ten- 
derness had  turned  into  calculation  —  after  I  saAV  that  you 
cared  for  yourself  only,  and  not  for  me.  I  heard  your 
explanatious  —  of  your  duty  in  life  —  of  our  mutual  repu- 
tation— of  a  virtuous  young  lady  attached  to  you.  I  bore 
it;  I  let  everything  go;  I  shut  my  eyes;  I  might  almost 
have  let  myself  starve,  rather  than  have  scenes  of  quarrel 
with  the  man  I  had  loved,  in  which  I  must  accuse  him  of 
turning  my  love  into  a  good  bargain."  There  was  a  slight 
tremor  in  Mrs.  Transome's  voice  in  the  last  words,  and  for 
a  moment  she  paused;  but  when  she  spoke  again  it  seemed 
as  if  the  tremor  had  frozen  into  a  cutting  icicle.  "I  sup- 
pose if  a  lover  picked  one's  pocket,  there's  no  woman  would 
like  to  own  it.  I  don't  say  I  was  not  afraid  of  you;  I  ivas 
afraid  of  you,  and  I  know  now  I  was  right." 

"Mrs.  Transome,"  said  Jermyn,  white  to  the  lips,  "it 
is  needless  to  say  more.  I  withdraw  any  words  that  have 
offended  you." 

"You  can't  withdraw  them.     Can  a  man  apologize  for 

being  a  dastard? And  I  have  caused  you  to  strain  your 

conscience,  have  1?  —  it  is  I  who  have  sullied  your  purity? 
I  should  think  the  demons  have  more  honor — they  are  not 
so  impudent  to  one  another.  I  would  not  lose  the  misery 
of  being  a  woman,  now  I  see  what  can  be  the  baseness  of  a 
man.  One  must  be  a  man — first  to  tell  a  woman  that  her 
love  has  made  her  your  debtor,  and  then  ask  her  to  pay 
5^ou  by  breaking  the  last  poor  threads  between  her  and  her 


son." 


"  I  do  not  ask  it,"  said  Jermyn,  with  a  certain  asperity. 
He  was  beginning  to  find  this  intolerable.  The  mere 
brute  strength  of  a  masculine  creature  rebelled.  He  felt 
almost  inclined  to  throttle  the  voice  out  of  this  woman. 

"  You  do  ask  it:  it  is  what  you  would  like.  I  have  had 
a  terror  on  me  lest  evil  should  happen  to  you.  From  the 
first,  after  Harold  came  home,  I  had  a  horrible  dread.  It 
seemed  as  if  murder  might  come  between  you  —  I  didn't 
know  what.  I  felt  the  horror  of  his  not  knowing  the 
truth.     I  might  have  been  dragged  at  last,   by  my  own 


THE   RADICAL.  369 

feeling  —  by  my  own  memory  —  to  tell  him  all,  and  make 

him  as  well  as  myself  miserable,  to  save  you." 

Again  there  was  a  slight  tremor,  as  if  at  the  remem- 
brance of  womanly  tenderness  and  pity.  But  immediately 
she  launched  forth  again. 

''But  now  you  have  asked  me,  I  will  never  tell  him!  Be 
ruined — no — do  something  more  dastardly  to  save  yourself. 
If  I  sinned,  my  judgment  went  beforehand — that  I  should 
sin  for  a  man  like  you." 

Swiftly  upon  those  last  words  Mrs.  Transome  passed  out 
of  the  room.  The  softly  padded  door  closed  behind  her 
making  no  noise,  and  Jermyn  found  himself  alone. 

For  a  brief  space  he  stood  still.  Human  beings  in 
moments  of  passionate  reproach  and  denunciation,  espe- 
cially when  their  anger  is  on  their  own  account,  are  never 
so  wholly  in  the  right  that  the  person  who  has  to  wince 
cannot  possibly  protest  against  some  unreasonableness  or 
unfairness  in  their  outburst.  And  if  Jermyn  had  been 
6a|);Ll»lc  of  feeling  that  he  had  thoroughly  merited  this 
infliction,  he  would  not  have  uttei-ed  the  words  that  drew 
it  down  on  him.  Men  do  not  become  penitent  and  learn 
to  abhor  themselves  by  liaving  their  backs  cut  open  witli 
the  lash;  rather,  they  learn  to  abhor  the  lash.  What  Jer- 
myn felt  about  Mrs.  Transome  when  she  disappeared  was, 
tliat  she  was  a  furious  woman — who  would  not  do  what  he 
wanted  her  to  do.  And  he  was  supported  as  to  his  justifi- 
ableness  by  the  inward  repetition  of  what  he  had  already 
said  to  her;  it  was  right  that  Harold  should  know  the 
truth.  He  did  not  take  into  account  (how  should  he?) 
the  exasperation  and  loathing  excited  by  his  daring  to  urge 
the  plea  of  right.  A  man  who  Jiad  stolen  the  pyx,  and  got 
frightened  when  justice  was  at  his  heels,  might  feel  the 
sort  of  penitence  wliich  would  induce  him  to  run  back  in 
the  dark  and  lay  the  pyx  where  the  sexton  might  find  it; 
but  if  in  doing  so  he  whispered  to  the  Blessed  X^irgin  that 
he  was  moved  by  considering  the  sacredness  of  all  property, 
and  the  peculiar  sacredness  of  the  pyx,  it  is  not  to  be 
believed  that  she  would  like  him  the  better  for  it.  Indeed, 
one  often  seems  to  see  why  the  saints  sliould  prefer  candles 
to  words,  especially  from  penitents  whose  skin  is  in  danger. 
Some  salt  of  generosity  would  have  made  Jermyn  conscious 
that  he  had  lost  the  citizenship  which  authorized  him  to 
plead  the  right;  still  more,  that  his  self -vindication  to 
Mrs.  Transome  would  be  like  the  exhibition  of  a  brand- 
mark,  and  only  show  that  he  was  shame-proof.  There  is 
34 


370  FELIX   HOLT, 

heroism  even  in  the  circles  of  liell  for  fellow-sinners  who 
ding  to  each  other  in  the  fiery  whirlwind  and  never 
recriminate.  But  these  things,  which  are  easy  to  discern 
when  they  are  painted  for  us  on  the  large  canvas  of  poetic 
story,  become  confused  and  obscure  even  for  well-read 
gentlemen  wlien  tlieir  affection  for  themselves  is  alarmed 
by  pressing  details  of  actual  experience.  If  their  compar- 
ison of  instances  is  active  at  such  times,  it  is  chiefly  in 
showing  them  that  their  own  case  has  subtle  distinctions 
from  all  other  cases,  which  should  free  them  from  unmiti- 
gated condemnation. 

And  it  was  in  this  way  with  Matthew  Jermyn.  So  many 
things  were  more  distinctly  visible  to  him,  and  touched 
him  more  acutely,  than  the  effect  of  his  acts  or  words  on 
Mrs.  Transome's  feelings!  In  fact — he  asked,  with  a  touch 
of  something  that  makes  us  all  akin — was  it  not  prepos- 
terous, this  excess  of  feeling  on  points  which  he  himself 
did  not  find  powerfully  moving?  She  had  treated  him^ 
most  unreasonably.  It  would  have  b^en  right  for  her  to 
do  what  he  had — not  asked,  but  only  hinted  at  in  a  mild 
and  interrogatory  manner.  But  the  clearest  and  most 
unpleasant  result  of  the  interview  was,  that  this  right 
thing  which  he  desired  so  much  would  certainly  not  be 
done  for  him  by  Mrs.  Transome. 

As  he  was  moving  his  arm  from  the  chair-back,  and 
turning  to  take  his  hat,  there  Avas  a  boisterous  noise  in  the 
entrance-hall;  the  door  of  the  small  drawing-room,  which 
had  closed  without  latching,  was  pushed  open,  and  old 
]\Ir.  Transome  appeared  with  a  face  of  feeble  delight, 
playing  horse  to  little  Harry,  who  roared  and  flogged 
behind  him,  while  Moro  yapped  in  a  puppy  voice  at  their 
heels.  But  when  Mr.  Transome  saw  Jermyn  in  the  room 
he  stood  still  in  the  doorway,  as  if  he  did  not  know 
whether  entrance  was  permissible.  The  majority  of  his 
thoughts  were  but  raveled  threads  of  the  past.  Tlie 
attorney  came  forward  to  shake  hands  with  due  polite- 
ness, but  the  old  man  said,  with  a  bewildered  look,  and  in 
a  hesitating  way — 

"Mr.  Jermyn? — why — why — where  is  Mrs.  Transome?" 

Jermyn  smiled  his  way  out  past  the  nnexpected  group; 
and  little  Harry,  thinking  he  had  an  eligible  opportunity, 
turned  round  to  give  a  parting  stroke  on  the  stranger's 
coat-tails. 


THE   RADICAL.  373 


CHAPTEK  XLIII. 

Whichever  way  mv  days  decline, 
I  felt  and  feel,  thougrli  left  aloiK,, 
His  being  working  in  mine  own. 

The  footsteps  of  liis  life  in  mine. 

****** 
Dear  friend,  far  off,  my  lost  desire 

So  far,  so  near,  in  woe  and  weal; 

O,  loved  the  most  when  most  I  feel 
There  is  a  lower  and  a  higher! 

Tennyson:  In  Memoriam. 

After  that  morning  on  which  Esther  found  herself  red' 
dened  and  confused  by  the  sense  of  having  made  a  distant 
alhision  to  Felix  Holt,  she  felt  it  impossible  that  she 
should  even,  as  she  had  sometimes  intended,  to  speak  of 
him  explicitly  to  Harold,  in  order  to  discuss  the  probabil- 
ities as  to  the  issue  of  his  trial.  She  was  certain  she 
could  not  do  it  without  betraying  emotion,  and  there  were 
very  complex  reasons  in  Esther's  mind  why  she  could 
not  bear  that  Harold  should  detect  lier  sensibility  on 
this  subject.  It  was  not  only  all  the  fibres  of  maidenly 
pride  and  reserve,  of  a  bashfulness  undefinably  peculiar 
toward  this  man,  wlio,  while  much  older  than  herself,  and 
bearing  the  stamp  of  an  experience  quite  hidden  from  her 
imagination,  was  taking  strongly  the  aspect  of  a  lover — 
it  was  not  onlv  this  exquisite  kind  of  shame  which  was  at 
Avork  within  her:  there  was  another  sort  of  susceptibility 
in  Estiier,  which  her  present  circumstances  tended  to 
eu(;our;i,ge,  though  she  had  come  to  regard  it  as  not  at  all 
lofty,  but  rather  as  something  which  condemned  her  to 
littleness  in  comparison  with  a  mind  she  had  learned  to 
venerate.  She  knew  quite  well  that,  to  Harold  Transome, 
Felix  Holt  was  one  of  the  common  people  who  could  come 
into  question  in  no  other  than  a  public  light.  She  had  a 
native  capability  for  discerning  that  the  sense  of  ranks 
and  degrees  has  its  repulsions  corresponding  to  the  repul- 
sions dependent  on  difference  of  race  and  color;  and  she 
remembered  her  own  impressions  too  well  not  to  foresee 
that  it  Avould  come  on  Harold  Transome  as  a  sliock,  if  he 
suspected  there  had  been  any  love-passages  between  her 
and  this  young  man,  who  to  him  was  of  course  no  more 
than  any  other  intelligent  member  of  the  working  class. 
'*To  him,"  said  Esther  to  herself,  with  a  reaction  of  lier 
newer,  better  pride,  "  who  has  not  luid  the  sort  of  inter- 
course in  which  Felix  Holt's  cultured  nature  would  have 


372  FELIX  HOLT, 

asserted  its  superiority."  And  in  her  fluctuations  on  this 
matter,  slie  found  herself  mentally  protesting  that,  what- 
ever Harold  might  think,  there  was  a  light  in  which  he 
was  vulgar  compared  with  Felix.  Felix  had  ideas  and 
motives  which  she  did  not  believe  Harold  could  under- 
stand. More  than  all,  there  was  this  test:  she  herself  had 
no  sense  of  inferiority  and  Jnst  subjection  when  she  was 
with  Harold  Transome;  there  were  even  points  in  him  for 
which  she  felt  a  touch,  not  of  anger,  but  of  playful  scorn; 
whereas  with  Felix  she  had  alwa3'S  a  sense  of  dependence 
and  possible  illumination.  In  those  large,  grave,  candid 
gray  eyes  of  his,  love  seemed  something  that  belonged  to 
the  high  enthusiasm  of  life,  such  as  might  now  be  forever 
shut  out  from  her. 

All  the  same,  her  vanity  winced  at  the  idea  that  Harold 
should  discern  what,  from  his  point  of  view,  would  seem 
like  a  degradation  of  her  taste  and  refinement.  She  could 
not  help  being  gratified  by  all  the  manifestations  from 
those  around  her  that  she  was  thought  tlioroughly  fitted 
for  a  high  position — could  not  help  enjoying,  with  more 
or  less  keenness,  a  rehearsal  of  that  demeanor  amongst 
luxuries  and  dignities  which  had  often  been  a  part  of  her 
day-dreams,  and  the  rehearsal  included  the  reception  of 
more  and  more  emphatic  attentions  from  Harold,  and  of 
an  effusiveness  in  his  manners,  which,  in  proportion  as  it 
would  have  been  offensive  if  it  had  appeared  earlier, 
became  flattering  as  the  effect  of  a  growing  acquaintance 
and  daily  contact.  It  comes  in  so  many  forms  in  this  life 
of  ours — the  knowledge  that  there  is  something  sweetest 
and  noblest  of  which  we  despair,  and  the  sense  of  some- 
thing present  that  solicits  us  with  an  immediate  and  easy 
indulgence.  And  there  is  a  pernicious  falsity  in  the  pre- 
tense that  a  woman's  love  lies  above  the  range  of  such 
temptations. 

Day  after  day  Esther  had  an  arm  offered  her,  had  very 
beaming  looks  upon  her,  had  opportunitias  for  a  great  deal 
of  light,  airy  talk,  in  which  she  knew  herself  to  be  charm- 
ing, and  had  the  attractive  interest  of  noticing  Harold's 
practical  cleverness  —  the  masculine  ease  with  which  he 
governed  everybody  and  administered  everything  about 
him,  without  the  least  harshness,  and  with  a  facile  good- 
nature which  yet  was  not  weak.  In  the  background,  too, 
there  was  the  ever-present  consideration,  that  if  Harold 
Transome  wished  to  marry  her,  and  she  accepted  him,  the 
problem  of  her  lot  would  be  more  easily  solved  than  in  any 


THE    RADICAL.  373 

other  way.  It  was  diflBcult  by  any  theory  of  Providence, 
or  consideration  of  results,  to  see  a  course  which  she  could 
call  duty:  if  something  would  come  and  urge  itself 
strongly  as  pleasure,  and  save  her  from  the  effort  to  find  a 
clue  of  principle  amid  the  labyrinthine  confusions  of  right 
and  possession,  the  promise  could  not  but  seem  alluring. 
And  yet,  this  life  at  Transome  Court  was  not  the  life  of 
her  day-dreams:  there  was  dullness  already  in  its  ease,  and 
in  the  absence  of  high  demand;  and  there  was  a  vague 
consciousness  that  the  love  of  this  not  unfascinating  man 
who  hovered  about  her  gave  an  air  of  moral  mediocrity  to 
all  her  prospects.  She  would  not  have  been  able  perhaps 
to  define  this  imjiression;  but  somehow  or  other  by  this 
elevation  of  fortune  it  seemed  that  the  higher  ambition 
which  had  begun  to  sjiring  in  her  was  forever  nullified. 
All  life  seemed  cheapened;  as  it  might  seem  to  a  young 
student  who,  having  believed  that  to  gain  a  certain  degree 
he  must  write  a  thesis  in  which  he  would  bring  his  powers 
to  bear  with  memorable  effect,  suddenly  ascertained  that 
no  thesis  was  expected,  but  the  sum  (in  English  money)  of 
twenty-seven  pounds  ten  shillings  and  sixpence. 

After  all,  she  was  a  woman,  and  could  not  make  her 
own  lot.  As  she  had  once  said  to  Felix,  'A  woman  must 
choose  meaner  things,  because  only  meaner  things  are 
offered  to  her."  Her  lot  is  made  for  her  by  the  love 
she  accepts.  And  Esther  began  to  think  that  her  lot  was 
being  made  for  her  by  the  love  that  was  surrounding  hei- 
Avitli  the  influence  of  a  garden  on  a  summer  morning. 

Harold,  on  his  side,  was  conscious  that  the  interest  of 
his  wooing  was  not  standing  still.  He  was  beginning  to 
think  it  a  conquest,  in  which  it  would  be  disappointing 
to  fail,  even  if  this  fair  mymyh  had  no  claim  to  the 
estate.  He  would  have  liked  —  and  3'et  he  would  not 
have  liked — that  just  a  slight  shadow  of  doubt  as  to  his 
success  should  be  removed.  There  was  something  about 
Esther  that  he  did  not  altogether  understand.  She  was 
clearly  a  woman  that  could  be  governed;  she  was  too 
charming  for  hmi  to  fear  that  she  Avould  ever  be  obstinate 
or  interfering.  Yet  there  was  a  lightning  that  shot  out  of 
her  now  and  then,  which  seemed  the  sign  of  a  dangerous 
judgment;  as  if  she  inwardly  saw  something  more  admir- 
able than  Harold  Transome,  Now,  to  be  perfectly  charm- 
ing, a  Avoman  should  not  see  this. 

One  fine  February  day,  when  already  the  golden  and 
purple  crocuses  were  out  on  the  terrace  —  one  of  those 


374  FELIX    HOLT, 

flattering  days  which  sometimes  precede  the  north-east 
winds  of  March,  and  make  believe  that  the  coming  spring 
will  be  enjoyable  —  a  very  striking  group,  of  whom  Esther 
and  Harold  made  a  part,  came  out  at  midday  to  walk 
upon  the  gravel  at  Transome  Court.  They  did  not,  as 
usual,  go  toward  the  pleasure  grounds  on  the  eastern  side, 
because  Mr.  Lingon,  who  was  one  of  them,  was  going 
home,  and  his  road  lay  through  the  stone  gateway  into 
the  park. 

Uncle  Lingon,  who  disliked  painful  confidences,  and  pre- 
ferred knowing  "no  mischief  of  anj'body,"  had  not 
objected  to  being  let  into  the  important  secret  about  Esther, 
and  was  sure  at  once  that  the  whole  affair,  instead  of  being 
a  misfortune,  was  a  jDiece  of  excellent  luck.  For  himself, 
he  did  not  profess  to  be  a  judge  of  women,  but  she  seemed 
to  have  all  the  "points,"  and  to  carry  herself  as  well  as 
Arabella  did,  which  was  saying  a  good  deal.  Honest  Jack 
Lingon's  first  impressions  quickly  became  traditions,  which 
no  subsequent  evidence  could  disturb.  He  was  fond  of 
his  sister,  and  seemed  never  to  be  conscious  of  any  change 
for  the  worse  in  her  since  their  early  time.  He  considered 
that  man  a  beast  who  said  anything  unpleasant  about  the 
persons  to  whom  he  was  attached.  It  was  not  that  he 
winked;  his  wide-open  eyes  saw  nothing  but  what  his  easy 
disposition  inclined  him  to  see.  Harold  was  a  good  fellow, 
a  clever  chap;  and  Esther's  peculiar  fitness  for  him,  under 
all  the  circumstances,  Avas  extraordinary;  it  reminded  him 
of  something  in  the  classics,  though  he  couldn't  think 
exactly  what — in  fact,  a  memory  was  a  nasty  uneasy  thing. 
Esther  was  always  glad  Avhen  the  old  rector  came.  With 
an  odd  contrariety  to  her  former  niceties  she  liked  his  rough 
attire  and  careless  frank  speech;  they  were  something  not 
point  device  that  seemed  to  connect  the  life  of  Transome 
Court  with  that  rougher,  commoner  world  where  her  home 
had  been. 

She  and  Harold  were  walking  a  little  in  advance  of  the 
rest  of  the  party,  Avho  were  retarded  by  various  causes. 
Old  Mr.  Transome,  wrapped  in  a  cloth  cloak  trimmed  with 
sable,  and  with  a  soft  warm  cap  also  trimmed  with  fur  on 
his  head,  had  a  shuffling  uncertain  T^-^r..  j  I'v'Ab  iiarr;- 
was  dragging  a  toy  vehicle,  on  the  seat  of  which  he  had 
insisted  on  tying  Moro  with  a  piece  of  scarlet  drapery 
round  him,  making  him  look  like  a  barbaric  prince  in  a 
chariot.  Moro,  having  little  imagination,  objected  to  this, 
and  barked  with  feeble  snappishness  as  the  tyrannous  lad 


TUE    RADICAL.  375 

ran  forward,  then  T\^hirled  the  chariot  round,  and  ran 
back  to  "Gappa,"then  came  to  a  dead  stop,  which  overset 
the  chariot,  that  he  might  watch  Uncle  Lingon's  water- 
spaniel  run  for  the  hurled  stick  and  bring  it  in  liis  mouth. 
Nimrod  kept  close  to  his  old  master's  legs,  glancing  with 
much  indifference  at  this  youthful  ardor  about  sticks — he 
had  "gone  tlirough  all  that";  and  Dominic  walked  by, 
looking  on  blandly,  and  taking  care  both  of  young  and 
old.     Mrs.  Transome  was  not  there. 

Looking  back  and  seeing  that  they  were  a  good  deal  in 
advance  of  the  rest,  Esther  and  Harold  paused. 

"What  do  you  think  about  thinning  the  trees  over 
there?"  said  Harold,  pointing  with  his  stick.  "1  have  a 
bit  of  a  notion  that  if  they  were  divided  into  clumps  so  as 
to  show  the  oaks  beyond  it  would  be  a  great  improvement. 
It  would  give  an  idea  of  extent  that  is  lost  now.  And 
there  might  be  some  very  pretty  clumps  got  out  of  those 
mixed  trees.     What  do  you  think?" 

"I  should  think  it  would  be  an  improvement.  One 
likes  a  '  beyond '  everywhere.  But  I  never  heard  you 
express  yourself  so  dubiously,"  said  Esther,  looking  at 
him  rather  archly:  ''you  generally  see  things  so  clearly, 
and  are  so  convinced,  that  I  shall  begin  to  feel  quite  tot- 
tering if  I  find  you  in  uncertainty.  Pray  don't  begin  to 
be  doubtful;  it  is  so  infectious." 

"You  think  me  a  great  deal  too  svire — too  confident?" 
said  Harold. 

"  Not  at  all.  It  is  an  immense  advantage  to  Icnow  your 
own  will,  Vv-hen  vou  always  mean  to  have  it." 

"But  supposi  I  couldn't  get  it,  in  spite  of  mean- 
ing?" said  Harold,  with  a  beaming  inquiry  in  his  eyes. 

"  Oh,  then,"  said  Esther,  turning  her  head  aside,  care- 
lessly, as  if  she  were  considering  the  distant  birch-stems, 
"you  would  bear  it  quite  easily,  as  you  did  your  not  get- 
ting into  Parliament.  You  would  know  you  could  get  it 
another  time — or  got  something  else  as  good." 

"The  fact  is,"  said  Harold,  moving  on  a  little,  as  if  he 
did  not  want  to  be  quite  overtaken  by  the  others,  "you 
consider  me  a  fat,  fatuous  self-satisfied  fellow." 

"Oh,  there  are  degrees,"  said  Esther,  with  a  silvery 
laugli;  "you  have  just  as  much  of  those  qualities  as  is 
becoming.  There  are  different  styles.  You  are  perfect 
in  your  own." 

"  But  you  prefer  another  style,  I  suspect.     A  more  sub- 


376  FELIX  HOLT, 

missive,  tearful,  devout  worshiper,   who   would  offer  his 

incense  with  more  trembling," 

"  You  are  quite  mistaken,"  said  Esther,  still  lightly. 
"I  find  I  am  very  wayward.  When  anything  is  offered 
to  me,  it  seems  that  I  prize  it  less,  and  don't  want  to 
have  it." 

Here  was  a  very  balking  answer,  but  in  spite  of  it 
Harold  could  not  help  believing  that  Esther  was  very  far 
from  objecting  to  the  sort  of  incense  he  had  been  offering- 
just  then. 

"■  I  have  often  read  that  that  is  in  human  nature,"  she 
went  on,  "  yet  it  takes  me  by  surjarise  in  myself.  I  sup- 
pose," she  added,  smiling,  "I  didn't  think  of  myself  as 
liumun  nature." 

"I  don't  confess  to  the  same  waywardness,"  said 
Harold.  "I  am  very  fond  of  things  that  I  can  get.  And 
I  never  longed  much  for  anything  out  of  my  reach. 
Whatever  I  feel  sure  of  getting  I  like  all  the  better.  I 
think  half  those  i^riggish  maxims  about  human  nature  in 
the  lump  are  no  more  to  be  relied  on  than  universal  reme- 
dies. There  are  different  sorts  of  hi;man  nature.  Some 
are  given  to  discontent  and  longing,  others  to  securing 
and  enjoying.  And  let  me  tell  you,  the  discontented 
longing  style  is  unpleasant  to  live  with." 

Harold  nodded  with  a  meaning  smile  at  Esther. 

"  Oh,  I  assure  you  I  have  abjured  all  admiration  for  it," 
she  said,  smiling  up  at  him.  in  return. 

She  was  remembering  the  schooling  Felix  had  given 
her  about  her  Byronic  heroes,  and  was  inwardly  adding 
a  third  sort  of  human  nature  to  those*  varieties  which 
Harold  had  mentioned.  He  naturally  supposed  that  he 
might  take  the  abjuration  to  be  entirely  in  his  own  favor. 
And  his  face  did  look  very  pleasant;  she  could  not  help 
liking  him,  although  he  Avas  certainly  too  particular  about 
sauces,  gravies,  and  wines,  and  had  a  way  of  virtually 
measuring  the  value  of  everything  by  the  contribution  it 
made  to  his  own  pleasure.  His  very  good-nature  was 
unsympathetic:  it  never  came  from  any  thorough  under- 
standing or  deep  respect  for  what  was  in  the  mind  of  the 
person  he  obliged  or  indulged;  it  was  like  his  kindness  to 
his  mother — an  arrangement  of  his  for  the  happiness  of 
others,  which,  if  they  were  sensible,  ought  to  succeed. 
And  an  inevitable  comparison  which  haunted  lier,  showed 
her  the  same  quality  in  his  political  views:  the  utmost 
enjoyment  of   his  own  advantages  was  the  solvent  that 


THE    RADICAL.  377 

blended  pride  in  his  famih'  and  position,  witli  the  adhesion 
to  changers  that  Avere  to  obliterate  tradition  and  melt  down 
enchased  gold  heirlooms  into  plating  for  the  egg-spoons  of 
"the  people."  It  is  terrible — the  keen  bright  eye  of  a 
woman  when  it  has  once  been  turned  with  admiration  on 
what  is  severely  true;  but  then,  the  severely  true  rarely 
comes  within  its  range  of  vision.  Esther  had  had  an 
unusual  illumination;  Harold  did  not  know  how,  but  he  dis- 
cerned enough  of  the  effect  to  make  him  more  cautious 
than  he  had  ever  been  in  his  life  before.  That  caution 
would  have  prevented  him  just  then  from  following  up  the 
question  as  to  the  style  of  person  Esther  would  think 
pleasant  to  live  with,  even  if  IJncle  Lingon  had  not  joined 
them,  as  he  did,  to  talk  about  soughing  tiles,  saying  pres- 
ently that  he  should  turn  across  the  grass  and  get  on  to 
the  Home  Farm,  to  have  a  look  at  the  improvements  that 
Harold  was  making  with  such  racing  speed. 

''But  you  know,  lad,"  said  the  rector,  as  they  paused  at 
the  expected  parting,  ''you  can't  do  everything  in  a 
hurry.  The  wheat  must  have  time  to  grow,  even  when 
vou've  reformed  all  us  old  Tories  off  the  face  of  the 
ground.  Dash  it!  now  the  election's  over:  Fm  an  old 
Tory  again.  You  see,  Harold,  a  Radical  won't  do  for  the 
county.  At  another  election,  you  must  be  on  the  look-out 
for  a  borough  where  they  want  a  bit  of  blood.  I  should 
have  liked  you  uncommonly  to  stand  for  the  county;  and  a 
Eadical  of  good  family  squares  well  enough  with  a  new- 
fashioned  Tory  like  young  Debarry;  but  you  see,  -these 
riots — it's  been  a  nasty  business,  I  shall  have  my  hair 
combed  at  the  sessions  for  a  year  to  come.  But,  heyday! 
What  dame  is  this,  with  a  small  boy? — not  one  of  my 
parishioners?" 

Harold  and  Esther  turned,  and  saw  an  elderly  woman 
advancing  with  a  tiny  red-haired  boy,  scantily  attired  as  to 
his  jacket,  which  merged  into  a  small  sparrow-tail  a  little 
higher  than  his  waist,  but  muffled  as  to  his  throat  with  a 
blue  woolen  comforter.  Esther  recognized  the  pair  too 
well,  and  felt  very  uncomfortable.  We  are  so  pitiably  in 
subjection  to  all  sorts  of  vanity — even  the  very  vanities 
v/e  are  j)ractically  renouncing!  And  in  spite  of  the  almost 
solemn  memories  connected  with  Mrs.  Holt,  Esther's  first 
shudder  was  raised  by  the  idea  of  what  things  this  woman 
would  say,  and  by  the  mortification  of  having  Felix  in  any 
way  represented  by  his  mother. 

As  Mrs.  Holt  advanced  into  closer  observation,  it  became 


378  FELIX    HOLT, 

more  evident  that  she  was  attired  with  a  view  not  to  charm 
the  eye,  but  rather  to  afSict  it  with  all  that  expression  of 
woe  which  belongs  to  very  rusty  bombazine  and  the  limpest 
state  of  false  hair.  Still,  she  was  not  a  woman  to  lose  the 
sense  of  her  own  value,  or  become  abject  in  her  manners 
irnder  any  circumstances  of  depression;  and  she  had  a 
l)eculiar  sense  on  the  present  occasion  that  she  was  justlv 
relying  on  the  force  of  her  own  character  and  judgment, 
in  independence  of  anything  that  Mr.  Lyon  or  the  mas- 
terful Felix  would  have  said,  if  she  had  thought  them 
worthy  to  know  of  her  undertaking.  She  curtsied  once, 
as  if  to  the  entire  group,  now  including  even  the  dogs, 
who  showed  various  degrees  of  curiosity,  especially  as  to 
wliat  kind  of  game  the  smaller  animal  Job  might  prove 
to  be  after  due  investigation;  and  then  she  proceeded  at 
once  toward  Esther,  who,  in  spite  of  her  annoyance,  took 
her  arm  from  Harold's,  said,  "  How  do  you  do,  Mrs.  Holt?" 
very  kindly,  and  stooped  to  pat  little  Job. 

"Yes  —  you  know  him,  Miss  Lyon/' said  Mrs.  Holt  in 
that  tone  which  imj)lies  that  the  conversation  is  intended 
for  the  edification  of  the  company  generally;  ''you  know 
the  orphin  child,  as  Felix  brought  home  for  me  that  am 
his  mother  to  take  care  of.  And  it's  what  I've  done  — 
nobody  more  so  —  though  it's  trouble  is  my  reward." 

Esther  had  raised  herself  again,  to  stand  in  helpless 
endurance  of  whatever  might  be  coming.  But  by  this 
time  young  Harry,  struck  even  more  than  the  dogs  by  the 
appearance  of  Job  Tudge,  had  come  round  dragging  his 
chariot,  and  placed  himself  close  to  the  jmle  child,  whom 
he  exceeded  in  height  and  breadth,  as  well  as  in  depth  of 
coloring.  He  looked  into  Job's  eyes,  peeped  round  at  the 
tail  of  his  jacket  and  pulled  it  a  little,  and  then,  takiug 
off  tlie  tiny  cloth-cap,  observed  with  much  interest  the 
tiglit  red  curls  which  had  been  hidden  underneath  it.  Job 
looked  at  his  inspector  with  the  round  blue  eyes  of  aston- 
ishment, until  Harry,  purely  by  Avay  of  experiment,  took 
a  bon-bon  from  a  fantastic  wallet  which  hung  over  his 
shoulder,  and  applied  the  test  to  Job's  lips.  The  result 
was  satisfactory  to  both.  Every  one  had  been  watching 
this  small  comedy,  and  when  Job  crunched  the  bon-bon 
while  Harry  looked  down  at  him  inquiringly  and  patted 
his  back,  there  was  general  laughter  except  on  the  part  of 
Mrs.  Holt,  who  was  shaking  her  head  slowly,  and  slapping 
the  back  of  her  left  hand  with  the  painful  patience  of  a 


THE    KADICAL.  379 

tragedian  whose  part  is  in  abeyance  to  an  ill-timed  intro- 
duction of  the  hnmorous. 

"I  hope  JoVs  cough  has  been  better  lately,"  said  Esther, 
in  niei-e  uncertainty  as  to  what  it  would  be  desirable  to  say 
or  do. 

"^I  dare  say  you  hope  so.  Miss  Lyon/'  said  Mrs.  Holt, 
looking  at  the  distant  landscape.  "  Fve  no  reason  to  dis- 
believe but  what  you  wish  well  to  the  child,  and  to  Felix, 
and  to  me.  Fm  sure  nobody  has  any  occasion  to  wish  me 
otherways.  My  character  will  bear  inquiry,  and  what  you, 
us  are  young,  don't  know,  others  can  tell  you.  That  was 
what  I  said  to  myself  when  I  made  up  my  mind  to  come  here 
and  see  you,  and  ask  you  to  get  me  the  freedom  to  speak 
to  Mr,  Transome.  I  said,  whatever  Miss  Lyon  may  be  now, 
in  the  way  of  being  lifted  up  among  great  people,  she's 
our  minister's  daughter,  and  was  not  above  coming  to  my 
house  and  walking  with  my  son  Felix — though  I'll  not 
deiiy  he  made  that  figure  on  the  Lord's  Day,  that'll  per- 
haps go  against  him  with  the  judge,  if  anvbody  thinks  well 
to  tell  him." 

Here  Mrs.  Holt  paused  a  moment,  as  with  a  mind  arrested 
by  the  painful  image  it  had  called  up. 

Esther's  face  was  glowing,  when  Harold  glanced  at  her; 
and  seeing  this,  he  was  considerate  enough  to  address  Mrs. 
Holt  instead  of  her. 

"You  are  then  the  mother  of  the  unfortunate  young 
man  who  is  in  jarison  ?  " 

'^Indeed  I  am,  sir,"  said  Mrs.  Holt,  feeling  that  slie  was 
now  in  deep  water.  It's  not  likely  I  should  claim  him  if 
he  wasn't  my  own;  though  it's  not  by  my  will,  nor  my 
axlvice,  sir,  that  he  ever  walked;  for  I  gave  him  none  but 
good.  But  if  everybody's  son  was  guided  by  their  mothers, 
the  world  'ud  be  different;  my  son  is  not  worse  than  many 
another  Avoman's  son,  and  that  in  Treby,  whatever  they 
may  say  as  haven't  got  their  sons  in  prison.  And  as  to  his 
giving  up  the  doctoring,  and  then  stopping  his  father's 
medicines,  I  know  it's  bad — that  I  know — but  it's  me  has 
had  to  suffer,  and  it's  me  a  king  and  Parliament  'ud  con- 
sider, if  tliey  meant  to  do  the  right  thing,  and  had  any- 
body to  make  it  known  to  'em.  And  as  for  the  rioting  and 
killing  the  constable — my  son  said  most  plain  to  me  he 
never  meant  it,  and  there  was  his  bit  of  potato-pie  for  his 
dinner  getting  dry  l)y  the  fire,  the  whole  blessed  time  as  I 
sat  and  never  knew  what  was  coming  on  me.  And  it's  my 
opinion  as  if  great  people  make  elections  to  get  themselves 


380  FELIX    HOLT, 

into  Parliament,  and  there's  riot  and  murder  to  do  it,  they 
ouglit  to  see  as  the  widow  and  the  widow's  son  doesn't 
suifer  for  it.  I  well  know  my  duty:  and  I  read  my  Bible; 
and  I  know  in  Jude  where  it's  been  stained  with  the  dried 
tulip-leaves  tliis  many  a  year,  as  you're  told  not  to  rail  at 
your  betters  if  they  was  the  devil  himself;  nor  will  I;  but 
this  I  do  say,  if  it's  three  Mr.  Transomes  instead  of  one  as 
is  listening  to  me,  as  there's  them  ought  to  go  to  the  king 
and  get  him  to  let  off  my  son  Felix." 

This  speech,  in  its  chief  points,  had  been  deliberately 
prepared.  Mrs.  Holt  had  set  her  face  like  a  flint,  to  make 
the  gentry  know  their  duty  as  she  knew  hers:  her  defiant 
defensive  tone  was  due  to  the  consciousness,  not  only  that 
she  was  braving  a  powerful  audience,  but  that  she  was  daring 
to  stand  on  the  strong  basis  of  her  own  judgment  in  oppo- 
sition to  her  son's.  Her  proposals  had  been  waived  oft'  b}^ 
Mr.  Lyon  and  Felix;  but  she  had  long  had  the  feminine  con- 
viction that  if  she  could  "get  to  speak"  in  the  right  quarter, 
things  might  be  different.  The  daring  bit  of  impromptu 
about  the  three  Mr.  Transomes  was  immediately  suggested 
by  a  movement  of  old  Mr.  Transome  to  the  foreground  in 
a  line  Avith  Mr.  Lingon  and  Harold;  his  furred  and  unusual 
costume  aj^pearing  to  indicate  a  mysterious  dignity  which 
she  must  hasten  to  include  in  her  appeal. 

And  there  were  reasons  that  none  could  have  foreseen, 
which  made  Mrs.  Holt's  remonstrance  immediately  effect- 
ive. While  old  Mr.  Transome  stared,  very  much  like  a 
waxen  image  in  which  the  expression  is  a  failure,  and  the  ^ 
rector,  accustomed  to  female  parisliioners  and  complainants, 
looked  on  with  a  smile  in  his  eyes,  Harold  said  at  once, 
with  cordial  kindness — 

"I  think  you  are  quite  right,  Mrs.  Holt.  And  for  my 
part,  I  am  determined  to  do  my  best  for  your  son,  both  in 
the  witness-box  and  elsewhere.  Take  comfort;  if  it  is 
necessary,  the  king  shall  be  appealed  to.  And  rely  upon 
it,  I  shall  bear  you  in  mind  as  Felix  Holt's  mother." 

Rapid  thoughts  had  convinced  Harold  that  in  this  way 
he  was  best  commending  himself  to  Esther. 

'''  Well,  sir,"  said  Mrs.  Holt,  who  was  not  going  to  pour 
forth  disproportionate  thanks,  ''I  am  glad  to  hear  you 
speak  so  l:)ecoming:  and  if  you  had  been  the  king  himself, 
I  should  have  made  free  to  tell  you  my  opinion.  For  the 
Bible  says,  the  kind's  favor  is  toward  a  wise  servant;  and 
it's  reasonable  to  think  he'd  make  all  the  more  account  of 
them  as  have  never  been  in  service,  or  took  wage,  which  I 


THE    RADICAL.  381 

never  did,  and  never  thought  of  mj  son  doing;  and  his 
father  left  money,  meaniug  otherways,  so  as  he  might  have 
been  a  doctor  on  horseback  at  this  very  minute,  instead  of 
being  in  prison/' 

"  Wliat!  was  he  regukrly  apprenticed  to  a  doctor?"  said 
Mr.  Lingon,  who  had  not  understood  this  before. 

"  Sir,  he  was,  and  most  clever,  like  his  father  before 
him,  only  he  turned  contrary.  But  as  for  harming  any- 
body, Felix  never  meant  to  harm  anybody  but  himself  and 
his  mother,  which  he  certainly  did  in  respect  of  his  clothes, 
and  taking  to  be  a  low  working  man,  and  stopping  my  liv- 
ing re.-ipectable,  more  particular  by  the  pills,  which  had  a 
sale,  as  you  may  be  sure  they  suited  people's  insides.  And 
what  folks  can  never  have  boxes  enough  of  to  swallow,  I 
should  think  you  have  a  right  to  sell.  And  there's  many 
and  many  a  text  for  it,  as  I've  opened  on  without  ever 
thinking;  for  if  it's  true,  'Ask,  and  you  shall  have,'  I 
should  think  it's  truer  when  you're  willing  to  pay  for  what 
you  have." 

This  was  a  little  too  much  for  Mr.  Lingon's  gravity;  he 
exploded,  and  Harold  could  not  help  following  him.  Mrs. 
Holt  fixed  her  eyes  on  the  distance,  and  slapped  the  back 
of  her  left  hand  again:  it  might  be  that  this  kind  of  mirth 
was  the  peculiar  effect  produced  by  forcible  truth  on  high 
and  worldly  people  who  were  neither  in  the  Independent 
nor  the  General  Baptist  connection. 

''I'm  sure  you  must  be  tired  with  your  long  walk,  and 
little  Job  too,"  said  Esther,  by  way  of  breaking  this  awk- 
ward scene.  "Aren't  you.  Job?"  she  added,  stooping  to 
caress  the  child,  avIio  was  timidly  shrinking  from  Harry's 
invitation  to  him  to  pull  the  little  chariot  —  Harry's  view 
being  that  Job  would  make  a  good  horse  for  him  to  beat, 
and  would  run  faster  than  Gappa. 

"  It's  well  you  can  feel  for  the  orphin  child.  Miss  Lyon," 
said  Mrs.  Holt,  choosing  an  indirect  answer  ratlier  than 
to  humble  herself  by  confessing  fatigue  before  gentlemen 
who  seemed  to  be  taking  her  too  lightly.  "I  didn't 
believe  but  what  you'd  behave  pretty,  as  you  always  did  to 
me,  though  everybody  said  you  held  yourself  high.  But 
I'm  sure  3'ou  never  did  to  Felix,  for  you  let  him  sit  by  you 
at  the  Free  School  before  all  the  town,  and  him  with  never 
a  bit  of  stock  round  his  neck.  And  it  shows  you  saw  that 
in  him  worth  taking  notice  of; — and  it  is  but  right,  if  you 
know  my  words  are  true,  as  you  should  speak  for  him  to 
the  gentlemen." 


382  FELIX   HOLT, 

"I  assure  you,  Mrs.  Holt,"  said  Harold,  coming  to  the 
rescue — "1  assure  you  that  enough  has  been  said  to  make 
me  use  my  best  efforts  for  your  son.  And  now,  pray,  go  on 
to  the  house  with  the  little  boy  and  take  some  rest.  Domi- 
nic, show  J\[rs.  Holt  the  way,  and  ask  Mrs.  Hickes  to  make 
her  comfortable,  and  see  that  somebody  takes  her  back  tu 
Treby  in  the  buggy." 

"I  will  go  back  with  Mrs.  Holt,"  said  Esther,  making 
an  effort  against  herself. 

"'No,  pray,"  said  Harold,  with  that  kind  of  entreaty 
which  is  really  a  decision.  "Let  Mrs.  Holt  have  time  to 
rest.  We  shall  have  returned,  and  you  can  see  her  before 
she  goes.  We  will  say  good-bve  for  the  present,  Mrs. 
Holt." 

The  poor  woman  was  not  sorry  to  have  the  prospect  of 
rest  and  food,  especially  for  "the  orphin  child,"  of  whom 
she  was  tenderly  careful.  Like  many  women  who  ffppear  to 
others  to  have  a  masculine  decisiveness  of  tone,  and  to  them- 
selves to  have  a  masculine  force  of  mind,  and  who  come  into 
severe  collision  with  sons  arrived  at  the  masterful  stage, 
she  had  the  maternal  cord  vibrating  strongly  within  hei- 
toward  all  tiny  children.  And  when  she  saw  Dominic 
pick  up  Job  and  hoist  him  on  his  arm  for  a  little  while,  by 
way  of  making  acquaintance,  she  regarded  him  with  an 
approval  which  she  had  not  thought  it  possible  to  extend 
to  a  foreigner.  Since  Dominic  was  going,  Harry  and  old 
Mr.  Transome  chose  to  follow.  Uncle  Lingon  shook  hands 
and  turned  off  across  the  grass,  and  thus  Esther  was  left 
alone  with  Harold. 

But  there  was  a  new  consciousness  between  them.  Har- 
old^s  quick  perception  was  least  likely  to  be  slow  in  seizing 
indications  of  anything  that  might  affect  his  position  with 
regard  to  Esther.  Some  time  before,  his  jealousy  had 
been  awakened  to  the  possibility  that  before  she  had  known 
him  slic  had  been  deeply  interested  in  some  one  else. 
Jealousy  of  all  sorts — Avhether  for  our  fortune  or  our  love — 
is  ready  at  combinations,  and  likely  even  to  outstrip  the 
fact.  And  Esther's  renewed  confusion,  united  with  her 
silence  about  Felix,  which  now  first  seemed  noteworthy, 
and  with  Mrs.  Holt's  grapliic  details  as  to  her  walking  with 
him  and  letting  him  sit  by  her  before  all  the  town  were 
grounds  not  merely  for  a  suspicion,  but  for  a  conclusion  in 
Harold's  mind.  The  effect  of  this  which  he  at  once  regarded 
as  a  discovery,  was  rather  different  from  what  Esther  liad 
anticipated.    It  seemed  to  him  that  Felix  was  the  least  for- 


THE    EADICAL.  383 

midable  person  that  he  could  have  found  as  an  object  of 
interest  antecedent  to  himself.  A  young  workman  who  had 
got  himself  thrown  into  prison,  whatever  recommendations 
he  might  have  had  for  a  girl  at  a  romantic  age  in  the  dreari- 
ness of  Dissenting  society  at  Treby,  could  hardly  be  consid- 
ered by  Harold  in  the  light  of  a  rival.  Esther  was  too  clever 
iiiid  tasteful  a  woman  to  make  a  ballad  heroine  of  herself,  by 
bestowing  her  beauty  and  her  lands  on  this  lowly  lover. 
Besides.  Harold  clierished  the  belief  that,  at  the  present 
time,  Esther  was  more  wisely  disposed  to  bestow  these 
Miings  on  another  lover  in  every  Avay  eligible.  But  in  two 
directions  this  discovery  had  a  determining  effect  on  him; 
liis  curiosity  was  stirred  to  know  exactly  what  the  relation 
with  Felix  had  been,  and  he  was  solicitous  that  his 
l}ehavior  with  regard  to  this  young  man  should  be  such  as 
to  enhance  his  own  merit  in  Esther's  eyes.  At  the  same 
time  he  was  not  inclined  to  any  euphemisms  that  Avould 
seem  to  bring  Felix  into  the  lists  with  himself. 

Naturally,  wlien  they  were  left  alone,  it  was  Harold  who 
spoke  first.  "  I  should  think  there^s  a  good  deal  of  worth 
in  this  young  fellow  —  this  Holt,  notwithstanding  the 
mistakes  he  has  made.  A  little'  queer  and  conceited,  per- 
])aps:  but  that  is  usually  the  case  with  men  of  his  class 
when  they  are  at  all  superior  to  their  fellows." 

"Felix  Holt  is  a  highly  cultivated  man;  he  is  not  at  all 
conceited,"  said  Esther.  The  different  kinds  of  pride 
within  her  were  coalescing  now.  She  was  aware  that 
there  had  been  a  betrayal. 

'^Ah?"  said  Harold,  not  quite  liking  the  tone  of  this 
answer.  "This  eccentricity  is  a  sort  of  fanaticism,  then? 
— this  giving  up  being  a  doctor  on  horseback,  as  the  old 
woman  calls  it,  and  taking  to — let  me  see — watchmaking, 
isn't  it? "_ 

"If  it  is  eccentricity  to  be  very  much  better  than  other 
men,  he  is  certainly  eccentric;  and  fanatical  too,  if  it  is 
fanatical  to  renounce  all  small  selfish  motives  for  the  sake 
of  a  great  and  unselfish  one.  I  never  knew  what  nobleness 
of  character  really  was  before  I  knew  Felix  Holt." 

It  seemed  to  Esther  as  if,  in  the  excitement  of  this 
moment,  her  own  Avords  were  bringing  her  a  clearer 
revelation. 

"God  bless  me!"  said  Harold,  in  a  tone  of  surprised  yet 
thorough  belief,  and  looking  in  Esther's  face.  "I  wish 
you  had  talked  to  me  about  this  before." 

Esther  at  that  moment  looked  perfectly  beautiful,  with 


384  FELIX    HOLT, 

an  expression  which  Harold  had  never  hitherto  seen.  All 
the  confusion  which  had  depended  on  personal  feeling  had 
given  wa}^  before  the  sense  that  she  had  to  speak  the  truth 
about  the  man  whom  slie  felt  to  be  admirable. 

"I  think  I  didn't  see  tlie  meaning  of  anything  fine — I 
didn't  even  see  the  value  of  my  father's  character,  until  I 
had  been  taught  a  little  l)y  hearing  what  Felix  Holt  said, 
and  seeing  that  his  life  was  like  his  words." 

Harold  looked  and  listened,  and  felt  his  slight  jealousy 
allayed  rather  than  heightened.  ''This  is  not  like  love," 
he  said  to  himself,  with  some  satisfaction.  With  all  due 
regard  to  Harold  Transome,  he  was  one  of  those  men 
who  are  liable  to  make  the  greater  mistakes  about  a  par- 
ticular woman's  feelings,  because  they  pique  themselves 
on  a  power  of  interpretation  derived  from  much  expe- 
rience._  Experience  is  enlightening,  but  with  a  difference. 
Experiments  on  live  animals  may  go  on  for  a  long  period, 
and  yet  the  fauna  on  which  they  are  made  may  be  limited. 
There  may  be  a  passion  in  the  mind  of  a  woman  which 
precipitates  her,  not  along  the  path  of  easy  beguilement, 
but  into  a  great  leap  away  from  it.  Harold's  experience 
had  not  taught  him  this;' and  Esther's  enthusiasm  about 
Felix  Holt  did  not  seem  to  him  to  be  dangerous. 

"He's  quite  an  apostolic  sort  of  fellow,  then,"  was  the 
self-quieting  answer  he  gave  to  her  last  words.  ''He 
didn't  look  like  that;  but  I  had  only  a  sliort  interview 
with  him,  and  I  was  given  to  understand  that  he  refused 
to  see  me  in  prison.  I  believe  he's  not  very  well  inclined 
toAvard  me.  But  you  saw  a  great  deal  of  him,  I  suj^pose^ 
and  your  testimony  to  any  one  is  enough  for  me,"  said 
Harold,  lowering  his  voice  rather  tenderly.  "Now  I 
know  what  your  opinion  is,  I  shall  spare  no  effort  on 
belialf  of  such  a  young  man.  In  fact,  I  had  come  to  the 
same  resolution  before,  but  your  Avish  would  make  difficult 
things  easy." 

After  that  energetic  speech  of  Esther's,  as  often  hap- 
pens, the  tears  had  just  suffused  her  eyes.  It  was 
nothing  more  than  might  have  been  expected  in  a  tender- 
hearted woman,  considering  Felix  Holt's  circumstances, 
and  the  tears  only  made  more  lovely  the  look  with  which 
she  met  Harold's  when  he  spoke  so  kindly.  She  felt 
pleased  with  him;  she  was  open  to  the  fallacious  delight 
o±  being  assured  that  slie  had  power  over  him  to  make 
hmi  do  what  she  liked,  and  quite  forgot  the  many  impres- 
sions which  had  convinced  her  that  Harold  had  a  paddec" 


THE    RADICAL.  385 

yoke  ready  for  the  neck  of  every  man,  woman,  and  child 
that  depended  on  him. 

After  a  short  silence,  they  were  getting  near  the  stone 
gateway,  and  Harold  said,  with  an  air  of  intimate  con- 
sultation— 

''What  could  we  do  for  tliis  young  man,  supposing  he 
were  let  off?  I  shall  send  a  letter  with  fifty  pounds  to  the 
old  woman  to-morrow.  I  ought  to  have  done  it  before, 
but  it  really  slipped  my  memory,  amongst  the  many 
things  that  have  occupied  me  lately.  But  this  young 
man  —  what  do  you  think  would  be  the  best  thing  we 
could  do  for  him,  if  he  gets  at  large  again.  He  should  be 
put  in  a  position  where  his  qualities  could  be  more  telling." 

Esther  was  recovering  her  liveliness  a  little,  and  was 
disposed  to  encourage  it  for  the  sake  of  veiling  other 
feelings,  about  Avhich  she  felt  renewed  reticence,  now  that 
the  overpowering  influence  of  her  enthusiasm  was  past. 
She  was  rather  wickedly  amused  and  scornful  at  Harold's 
misconceptions  and  ill-placed  intentions  of  patronage. 

'•'You  are  hopelessly  in  the  dark,"  she  said,  with  a  light 
laugh  and  toss  of  her  head.  "What  would  you  offer 
Felix  Holt?  a  place  in  the  Excise?  You  might  as  well 
think  of  offering  it  to  John  the  Baptist.  Felix  has  chosen 
his  lot.     He  means  always  to  be  a  poor  man." 

"Means?  Yes,"  said  Harold,  slightly  piqued,  "but 
what  a  man  means  usually  depends  on  what  happens.  I 
mean  to  be  a  commoner;  but  a  peerage  might  present 
itself  under  acceptable  circumstances." 

"Oh,  tliere  is  no  sum  in  proportion  to  be  done  there,'* 
said  Esther,  again  gaily.  "As  you  are  to  a  peerage  so  is 
7iot  Felix  Holt  to  any  offer  of  advantage  that  you  could 
imagine  for  him." 

"You  must  think  him  fit  for  any  position  —  the  first  in 
the  county." 

"N"o,  i  don't,"  said  Esther,  shaking  her  head  mis- 
chievously.    "I  think  him  too  liigh  for  it." 

"I  see  you  can  be  ardent  in  your  admiration." 

"Yes,  it  is  my  champagne;  you  know  I  don't  like  the 
other  kind." 

"That  would  be  satisfactory  if  one  were  sure  of  getting 
your  admiration,"  said  Harold,  leading  her  up  to  the 
terrace,  and  amongst  the  crocuses,  from  whence  they  had 
a  fine  view  of  the  park  and  river.  They  stood  still  near 
the  east  parapet,  and  saw  the  dash  of  light  on  the  water, 
and  the  penciled  shadows  of  the  trees  on  the  grassy  lawn. 
^5 


38C  FELIX   HOLT, 

"■  Would  it  do  as  well  to  admire  you,  instead  of  being 
worthy  to  be  admired?"  said  Harold,  turning  his  eyes 
from  that  landscape  to  Esther's  face. 

"It  would  be  a  thing  to  be  put  up  with,"  said  Esther, 
smiliug  at  him  rather  roguishly.  "But  you  are  not  in 
that  state  of  self -despair." 

"  Well,  T  am  conscious  of  not  having  those  severe  virtues 
that  you  have  been  praising," 

"  That  is  true.     You  are  quite  in  another  genre." 
"A  woman  would  not  find  me  a  tragic  hero." 
"Oh,  no!    She  must  dress  for  genteel  comedy  —  such 
as  your  mother  once  described  to  me  —  where  the  most 
thrilling  event  is  the  drawing  of  a  handsome  check." 

"You  are  a  naughty  fairy,"  said  Harold,  daring  to 
press  Esther's  hand  a  little  more  closely  to  him,  and 
drawing  her  down  the  eastern  steps  into  the  pleasure- 
ground,  as  if  he  were  unwilling  to  give  up  the  conver- 
sation. "  Confess  that  you  are  disgusted  with  my  want 
of  romance." 

"I  shall  not  confess  to  being  disgusted.     I  shall  ask 
you  to  confess  that  you  are  not  a  romantic  figure." 
"  I  am  a  little  too  stout." 

"For  romance  — yes.  At  least  you  must  find  security 
for  not  getting  stouter." 

"And  I  don't  look  languishing  enough?" 
"Oh,  yes  —  rather  too  much  so  —  at  a  fine  cigar." 
"And  I  am  not  in  danger  of  committing  suicide?'* 
"No;  you  are  a  widower." 

Harold  did  not  reply  immediately  to  this  last  thrust  of 
Esther's.  She  had  uttered  it  with  innocent  thoughtless- 
ness from  the  playful  suggestions  of  the  moment;  but  it 
was  a  fact  that  Harold's  previous  married  life  had  entered 
strongly  m  her  impressions  about  him.  The  presence  of 
Harry  made  it  inevitable.  Harold  took  this  allusion  of 
Esther's  as  an  indication  that  his  quality  of  widower  was  a 
point  that  made  against  him;  and  after  a  brief  silence  he 
said,  m  an  altered,  more  serious  tone  — 
'  "  TTi  ^^^'^'^  suppose,  I  hope,  that  any  other  woman  has 
evei-  held  the  place  that  you  could  hold  in  my  life?" 

Esther  began  to  tremble  a  little,  as  she  always  did  when 
the  love-talk  between  them  seemed  getting  serious.  She 
only  gave  the  rather  stumbling  answer,  "How  so?" 

"Harry's  mother   had   been  a   slave— was   bought,   in 

It  was  impossible  for  Harold  to  preconceive  the  effect  this 


THE    EADICAL.  387 

had  on  Esther.  His  natural  disqualification  for  judging 
of  a  girl's  feelings  was  heightened  by  the  blinding  effect 
of  an  exclusive  object — which  was  to  assure  her  that  her 
own  place  was  peculiar  and  supreme.  Hitherto  Esther's 
acquaintance  with  oriental  love  was  derived  chiefly  from 
Byronic  poems,  and  this  had  not  sufficed  to  adjust  her 
mind  to  a  new  story,  where  the  Giaour  concerned  was 
giving  her  his  arm.  She  was  unable  to  speak;  and  Harold 
went  on — 

'^'Though  I  am  close  on  thirty-five,  I  never  met  with  a 
woman  at  all  like  you  before.  There  are  new  eras  in  one's 
life  that  are  equivalent  to  youth — are  something  better 
than  youth.     I  was  never  an  aspirant  till  I  knew  you." 

Esther  was  still  silent. 

"  N^ot  that  I  dare  to  call  myself  that.  I  am  not  so 
confident  a  personage  as  you  imagine.  I  am  necessarily  in 
a  painful  position  for  a  man  who  has  any  feeling." 

Here  at  last  Harold  had  stirred  the  right  fibre.  Esthei'^s 
generosity  seized  at  once  the  whole  meaning  implied  in 
that  last  sentence.  She  had  a  fine  sensibility  to  the  line 
at  which  flirtation  must  cease;  and  she  was  now  pale  and 
shaken  with  feelings  she  had  not  yet  defined  for  herself. 

*'Do  not  let  us  speak  of  difiicult  things  any  more  now/' 
she  said,  with  gentle  seriousness.  "I  am  come  into  anew 
world  of  late,  and  have  to  learn  life  all  over  again.  Let  us 
go  in.  I  must  see  poor  Mrs.  Holt  again,  and  my  little 
friend  Job." 

She  paused  at  the  glass  door  that  opened  on  the  terrace, 
and  entered  there,  while  Harold  went  round  to  the  stables. 

When  Esther  had  been  up-stairs  and  descended  again 
into  the  large  entrance-hall,  she  found  its  stony  capacious- 
ness made  lively  by  human  figures  extremely  unlike  the 
statues.  Since  Harry  insisted  on  playing  with  Job  again, 
Mrs.  Holt  and  her  orphan,  after  dining,  had  just  been 
brought  to  this  delightful  scene  for  a  game  at  hide-and- 
seek,  and  for  exhibiting  the  climbing  powers  of  the  two 
pet  squirrels.  Mrs.  Holt  sat  on  a  stool,  in  singular  relief 
agjiinst  the  pedestal  of  the  Apollo,  while  Dominic  and 
Denner  (otherwise  Mrs.  Hickes)  bore  her  company;  Harry, 
in  his  bright  red  and  purple,  flitted  about  like  a  great- 
tropic  bird  after  the  sparrow-tailed  Job,  who  hid  himself 
with  much  intelligence  behind  the  scagliola  pillars  and  the 
pedestals;  while  one  of  the  squirrels  perched  itself  on  the 
head  of  the  tallest  statue,  and  the  other  was  already  peep- 


388  FELIX   HOLT, 

ing  down  from  among  the  heavy  stuccoed  angels  on  the 
ceiling,  near  the  summit  of  a  pillar. 

Mrs.  Holt  held  on  her  lap  a  baslcet  filled  with  good  things 
for  Job,  and  seemed  much  soothed  by  pleasant  company 
and  excellent  treatment.  As  Esther,  descending  softly  and 
unobserved,  leaned  over  the  stone  banisters  and  looked  at 
the  scene  for  a  minute  or  two,  she  saw  that  Mrs.  Holt's 
attention,  having  been  directed  to  the  squirrel  which  had 
scampered  on  to  the  head  of  the  Silenus  carrying  the 
infant  Bacchus,  had  been  drawn  downward  to  the  tiny 
babe  looked  at  witli  so  much  affection  by  the  rather  ugly 
and  hairy  gentleman,  of  whom  she  nevertheless  spoke  with 
reserve  as  of  one  who  possibly  belonged  to  the  Transome 
family. 

"It's  most  pretty  to  see  its  little  limbs,  and  the  gentle- 
man holding  it.  I  should  think  he  was  amiable  by  his 
look;  but  it  was  odd  he  should  have  his  likeness  took 
without  any  clothes.  Was  he  Transome  by  name?^' 
(Mrs.  Holt  suspected  that  there  might  be  a  mild  madness 
in  the  family.) 

Denner,  j^eering  and  smiling  quietly,  was  about  to 
reply,  when  she  was  prevented  by  the  appearance  of  old 
Mr.  Transome,  who  since  his  walk  had  been  having 
"  forty  winks "  on  the  sofa  in  the  library,  and  now  came 
out  to  look  for  Harry.  He  had  doffed  his  fur  cap  and 
cloak,  but  in  l^ing  down  to  sleep  he  had  thrown  over  his 
shoulders  a  soft  Oriental  scarf  which  Harold  had  given 
him,  and  this  still  hung  over  his  scanty  white  hair  and 
down  to  his  knees,  held  fast  by  his  wooden-looking  arms 
and  laxly-clasped  hands,  which  fell  in  front  of  him. 

This  singular  appearance  of  an  undoubted  Transome 
fitted  exactly  into  Mrs.  Holt's  thought  at  the  moment.  It 
lay  in  the  probabilities  of  things  that  gentry's  intellects 
should  be  peculiar:  since  they  had  not  to  get  their  own 
living,  the  good  Lord  might  have  economized  in  their 
case  that  common-sense  which  others  were  so  much  more 
in  need  of;  and  in  the  shuflfling  figure  before  her  she  saw 
a  descendant  of  the  gentleman  who  had  chosen  to  be  rep- 
resented without  his  clothes — all  the  more  eccentric  where 
there  were  the  means  of  buying  the  best.  But  these  oddi- 
ties "said  nothing"  in  great  folks,  who  were  powerful  in 
high  quarters  all  the  same.  And  Mrs.  Holt  rose  and  curt- 
sied with  a  proud  respect,  precisely  as  she  would  have 
done  if  Mr.  Transome  had  looked  as  wise  as  Lord 
Burleigh. 


THE    RADICAL.  389 


a 


I  hope  I'm  in  no  way  taking  a  liberty,  sir,"  slie  began, 
while  the  old  gentleman  looked  at  her  with  bland  feeble- 
ness; "  Fm  not  that  woman  to  sit  anywhere  oiit  of  my 
own  home  without  inviting  and  pressing  to.  But  I  was 
brought  here  to  wait,  because  the  little  gentleman  wanted 
to  play  with  the  orphin  child." 

"Very  glad,  my  good  woman — sit  down — sit  down," 
said  Mr.  Transome,  nodding  and  smiling  between  his 
clauses.     "Nice  little  boy.     Your  grandchild?" 

"Indeed,  sir,  no,"  said  Mrs.  Holt,  continuing  to  stand. 
Quite  apart  from  any  awe  of  Mr.  Transome — sitting  down, 
she  felt,  would  be  a  too  great  familiarity  with  her  own 
pathetic  importance  on  this  extra  and  unlooked-for  occa- 
sion. "It's  not  me  has  any  grandchild,  nor  ever  shall 
have,  though  most  fit.  But  with  my  only  son  saying  he'll 
never  be  married,  and  in  prison  besides,  and  some  saying 
he'll  be  transported,  you  may  see  yourself — though  a  gen- 
tleman— as  there  isn't  much  chance  of  my  having  grand- 
children of  my  own.  And  this  is  old  Master  Tudge's 
grandchild,  as  my  own  Felix  took  to  for  pity  because  he 
was  sickly  and  clemm'd,  and  I  was  noways  against  it, 
being  of  a  tender  heart.  For  I'm  a  widow  mj'self,  and  my 
son  Felix,  though  big,  is  fatherless,  and  I  know  my  dut}^ 
in  consequence.  And  it's  to  be  wished,  sir,  as  others 
should  know  it  as  are  more  in  power  and  live  in  great 
houses,  and  can  ride  in  a  carriage  where  they  will.  And 
if  you're  the  gentleman  as  is  the  head  of  everything — and 
it's  not  to  be  thought  you'd  give  up  to  your  son  as  a  poor 
widow's  been  forced  to  do — it  behooves  you  to  take  the 
part'of  them  as  are  deserving;  for  the  Bible  says  gray  hairs 
should  speak." 

"Yes,  yes — i)oor  woman — what  shall  I  say?"  said  old 
Mr.  Transome,  feeling  himself  scolded,  and,  as  usual, 
desirous  of  mollifying  displeasure. 

"Sir,  I  can  tell  you  what  to  say  fast  enough;  for  it's 
what  I  should  say  myself  if  I  could  get  to  speak  to  the 
king.  For  I've  asked  them  that  know,  and  they  say  it's 
the  truth,  both  out  of  the  Bible  and  in,  as  the  king  can 
pardon  anything  and  anybody.  And  judging  by  his  counte- 
nance on  the  new  signs,  and  the  talk  there  was  a  while  ago 
about  his  being  the  people's  friend,  as  the  minister  once 
said  it  from  the  very  pulpit — if  there's  any  meaning  in 
words,  he'll  do  the  right  thing  bj  me  and  my  son,  if  he's 
asked  proper." 

"Yes — a  very  good  man — he'll  do  anything  right,"  said 


390  PELIX   HOLT, 

Mr.  Transome,  whose  own  ideas  about  the  king  just  then 
were  somewhat  misty,  consisting  chiefly  in  broken  reminis- 
cences of  George  III,     ''  I'll  ask  him  anything  you  like," 
he  added,  with  a  pressing  desire  to  satisfy  Mrs.  Holt,  who 
alarmed  him  slightly. 

"Then,  sir,  if  you'll  go  in  your  carriage  and  say,  this 
young  man,  Felix  Holt  by  name,  as  his  father  was  known 
the  country  round,  and  his  mother  most  resjsectablc — he 
never  meant  harm  to  anybody,  and  so  far  from  bloody 
murder  and  fighting,  would  part  with  his  victual  to  them 
that  needed  it  more — and  if  you'd  get  other  gentlemen  to 
say  the  same,  and  if  they're  not  satisfied  to  inquire — I'll 
not  believe  but  what  the  king  'ud  let  my  son  out  of  prison. 
Or  if  it's  true  he  must  stand  his  trial,  the  king  'ud  take 
care  no  mischief  happened  to  him.  I've  got  my  senses, 
and  I'll  never  believe  as  in  a  country  where  there's  a  God 
above  and  a  king  below,  the  right  thing  can't  be  done  if 
great  people  was  willing  to  do  it," 

Mrs.  Holt,  like  all  orators,  had  waxed  louder  and  more 
energetic,  ceasing  to  propel  her  arguments,  and  being  pro- 
pelled by  them.  Poor  old  Mr.  Transome,  getting  more 
and  more  frightened  at  this  severe-spoken  woman,  who 
had  the  horrible  possibility  to  his  mind  of  being  a  novelty 
that  was  to  become  permanent,  seemed  to  be  fascinated  by 
fear,  and  stood  helplessly  forgetful  that  if  he  liked  he 
might  turn  round  and  walk  away. 

Little  Harry,  alive  to  anything  that  had  relation  to 
'"Gappa,"  had  paused  in  his  game,  and,  discerning  what 
lie  thought  a  hostile  aspect  in  this  naughty  black  old 
woman,  rushed  toward  her  and  proceeded  first  to  beat  her 
with  his  mimic  jockey's  whip,  and  then,  suspecting*  that 
her  bombazine  was  not  sensitive,  to  set  his  teeth  in  her 
arm.  While  Dominic  rebuked  him  and  pulled  him  off, 
Ximrod  began  to  bark  anxiously,  and  the  scene  was  become 
alarming  even  to  the  squirrels,  which  scrambled  as  far  off 
as  possible. 

Esther,  who  had  been  waiting  for  an  opportunity  of 
intervention,  now  came  up  to  Mrs.  Holt  to  speak  some 
soothing  words;  and  old  Mr,  Transome,  seeing  a  sufficient 
screen  between  himself  and  his  formidable  suppliant,  at 
last  gathered  courage  to  turn  round  and  shuffle  away  with 
unusual  swiftness  into  the  library, 

" Dear  Mrs.  Holt,"  said  Esther,  "do  rest  comforted.  I 
assure  you,  you  have  done  the  utmost  that  can  be  done  by 
your  words.     Your  visit  has  not  been  thrown  away.     See 


THE   RADICAL.  391 

how  the  children  have  enjoyed  it!  I  saw  little  Job  actually 
laughing.  I  think  I  never  saw  iiim  do  more  than  smile 
before."  Then  turning  round  to  Dominic,  she  said,  ''Will 
the  buggy  come  rouud  to  this  door?" 

This  hint  was  sufficient.  Dominic  went  to  see  if  the 
vehicle  was  ready,  and  Denner,  remarking  that  Mrs.  Holt 
would  like  to  mount  it  in  the  inner  court,  invited  her  to 
go  back  into  the  housekeeper's  room.  But  there  was  a 
fresh  resistance  raised  in  Harry  by  the  threatened  departure 
of  Job,  who  had  seemed  an  invaluable  addition  to  the 
menagerie  of  tamed  creatures;  and  it  was  barely  in  time 
that  Esther  had  the  relief  of  seeing  the  entrance  hall 
cleared  so  as  to  prevent  an}^  further  encounter  of  Mrs. 
Holt  with  Harold,  who  was  now  coming  up  the  flight  of 
steps  at  the  entrance. 


CHAPTER    XLIV. 

I'm  sick  at  heart.    The  eye  of  day. 
The  insistent  summer  noon,  seems  pitiless. 
Shining  in  all  the  barren  crevices 
Of  weary  life,  leaving  no  shade,  no  dark. 
Where  I  maj'  dream  that  hidden  waters  lie. 

Shortly  after  Mrs.  Holt^s  striking  presentation  of  her- 
self at  Transonic  Court,  Esther  went  on  a  second  visit  to 
her  father.  The  Loamford  Assizes  were  approaching;  it 
was  expected  that  in  about  ten  days  Felix  Holt's  trial 
would  come  on,  and  some  hints  in  her  father's  letters  had 
given  Esther  the  impression  tiiat  he  was  taking  a  melan- 
choly view  of  the  result.  Harold  Transome  had  once  or 
twice  mentioned  the  .subject  with  a  facile  hopefulness 
as  to  "the  young  fellow's  coming  off  easily,"  which,  in  her 
anxious  mind,  was  not  a  counterpoise  to  disquieting  sug- 
gestions, and  she  had  not  chosen  to  introduce  another  con- 
versation about  Felix  Holt,  by  questioning  Harold  concern- 
ing the  probabilities  he  relied  on.  Since  those  moments  on 
the  terrace,  Harold  had  daily  become  more  of  the  solicitous 
and  indirectly  beseeching  lover;  and  Esther,  from  the  very 
fact  that  she  was  weighed  on  by  thoughts  that  were  painfully 
bev/ilderiug  to  her — by  thoughts  which,  in  their  newness 
to  her  young  mind,  seemed  to  shake  her  belief  that  life 
could  be  anything  else  than  a  compromise  with  things 
repugnant  to  the  moral  taste — had  become  more  passive  to 


302  FELTX   HOLT, 

liis  attentions  at  the  very  time  that  she  had  begun  to  feel 
more  profoundly  that  in  accepting  Harold  Transome  she 
left  the  high  mountain  air,  the  passionate  serenity  of  per- 
fect love  forever  behind  her,  and  must  adjust  her  wishes 
to  a  life  of  middling  delights,  overhung  with  the  languor- 
ous haziness  of  motiveless  ease,  where  poetry  was  only  liter- 
ature, and  the  fine  ideas  had  to  be  taken  down  from  the 
shelves  of  the  library  when  her  husband's  back  was  turned. 
But  it  seemed  as  if  all  outward  conditions  concurred,  along 
with  her  generous  sympathy  for  the  Transomes,  and  with 
those  native  tendencies  against  which  she  had  once  begun 
to  struggle,  to  make  this  middling  lot  the  best  she  could 
attain  to.  She  was  in  this  half-sad,  half-satisfied  resigna- 
tion to  something  like  what  is  called  worldly  wisdom, 
when  she  went  to  see  her  father,  and  learn  what  she  could 
from  him  about  Felix. 

The  little  minister  was  much  depressed,  unable  to  resign 
himself  to  the  dread  which  had  begun  to  haunt  him,  that 
Felix  might  have  to  endure  the  odious  penalty  of  transpor- 
tation for  the  manslaughter,  which  was  the  offense  that  no 
evidence  in  his  favor  could  disprove. 

'•I  had  been  encouraged  by  the  assurances  of  men 
instructed  in  this  regard,"  said  Mr.  Lyon,  while  Esther 
sat  on  the  stool  near  him,  and  listenecl  anxiously,  "  that 
though  he  were  pronounced  guilty  in  regard  to  this  deed 
whereinto  he  hath  calamitously  "^fallen,  yet  that  a  judge 
mildly  disposed,  and  with  a  due  sense  of  that  invisible 
activity  of  the  soul  whereby  the  deeds  which  are  the  same 
in  outward  appearance  and  effect,  yet  differ  as  the  knife- 
stroke  of  the  surgeon,  even  though  it  kill,  differs  from  the 
knife-stroke  of  a  wanton  mutilater,  might  use  his  discre- 
tion in  tempering  the  punishment,  so  that  it  would  not  be 
very  evil  to  bear.  But  now  it  is  said  that  the  judge  who 
conieth  is  a  severe  man,  and  one  nourishing  a  prejudice 
against  the  bolder  spirits  who  stand  not  in  the  old  paths." 
^  "I  am  going  to  be  present  at  the  trial,  father,"  gaid 
Esther,  who  was  preparing  the  way  to  express  a  wish, 
which  she  was  timid  about  even  Avith  her  father.  "1 
mentioned  to  Mrs.  Transome  that  I  should  like  to  do  so, 
and  she  said  that  she  used  in  old  days  always  to  attend  the 
assizes,  and  that  she  would  take  me.  You  will  be  there, 
father?" 

"Assuredly  I  shall  be  there,  having  been  summoned  to 
bear  witness  to  Felix's  character,  and  to  his  having  uttered 
remonstrances  and  warnings  long  beforehand  whereby  he 


THE    RADICAL.  393 

proved  himself  au  enemy  to  riot.  In  our  ears,  who  know 
him,  it  sounds  strangely  that  aught  else  should  be  credible; 
but  he  hath  few  to  speak  for  him,  though  I  trust  that  Mr. 
Harold  Transome's  testimony  will  go  far,  if,  as  you  say,  he 
is  disposed  to  set  aside  minor  regards,  and  not  to  speak  the 
truth  grudgingly  and  reluctantly.  For  the  very  truth 
hath  a  color  from  the  disposition  of  the  utterer." 

"  He  is  kind;  he  is  capable  of  being  generous,"  said 
Esther. 

"It  is  well.  Fori  verily  believe  that  evil-minded  men 
have  been  at  work  against  Felix.  The  '  Dufiield  Watch- 
man '  hath  written  continually  in  allusion  to  him  as  one  of 
those  mischievous  men  who  seek  to  elevate  themselves 
through  the  dishonor  of  their  party;  and  as  one  of  those 
who  go  not  heart  and  soul  with  the  needs  of  the  people, 
but  seek  only  to  get  a  hearing  for  themselves  by  raising 
their  voices  in  crotchety  discord.  It  is  these  things  that 
cause  me  heaviness  of  sp'irit:  the  dark  secret  of  this  young 
man's  lot  is  a  cross  I  carry  daily."' 

"  Father,"  said  Esther,  timidly,  while  the  eyes  of  both 
were  filling  with  tears,  "1  should  like  to  see  him  again 
before  his  trial.  Might  I?  Will  you  ask  him?  Will  you 
take  me?" 

The  minister  raised  his  suffused  eyes  to  hers,  and  did  not 
speak  for  a  moment  or  two.  A  new  thought  had  visited 
him.  But  his  delicate  tenderness  shrank  even  from  an 
inward  inquiry  that  was  too  curious  —  that  seemed  like  an 
effort  to  peep  at  sacred  secrets. 

''I  see  naught  against  it,  my  dear  child,  if  you  arrived 
early  enough,  and  would  take  the  elderly  lady  into  youc 
confidence,  so  that  you  might  descend  from  the  carriage  at 
some  suitable  place  —  the  house  of  the  Independent  minis- 
ter, for  example — where  I  could  meet  and  accompany  you. 
I  would  forewarn  Felix,  who  would  doubtless  delight  to 
see  your  face  again;  seeing  that  he  may  go  away,  and  be, 
as  it  were,  buried  from  you,  even  though  it  may  be  only  in 
prison,  and  not " 

This  was  too  much  for  Esther.  She  threw  her  arms 
round  lier  father's  neck  and  sobbed  like  a  child.  It  was  an 
unspeakable  relief  to  her  after  all  the  pent-up,  stifling 
experience,  all  the  inward  incommunicable  debate  of  the 
last  few  weeks.  The  old  man  was  deeply  moved,  too,  and 
held  his  arm  close  round  the  dear  child,  praying  silently. 

No  word  was  spoken  for  some  minutes,  till  Esther  raised 
herself,  dried  her  eyes,  and,  with  an  action  that  seemed 


394  FELIX   HOLT, 

playful,  though  there  was  no  smile  on  her  face,  pressed 
her  handkerchief  against  her  father's  cheeks.  Then,  when 
she  had  put  her  hand  in  his,  he  said,  solemnly — 

'"Tis  a  great  and  mysterious  gift,  this  clinging  of  the 
heart,  my  Esther,  whereby  it  hath  often  seemed  to  me  that 
even  in  the  very  moment  of  suffering  our  souls  have  the 
keenest  foretaste  of  heaven.  I  speak  not  lightly,  but  as 
one  who  hath  endured.  And  'tis  a  strange  truth  that  only 
in  the  agony  of  parting  we  look  into  the  depths  of  love." 

So  the  interview  ended,  without  any  question  from  Mr. 
Lyon  concerning  what  Esther  contemjilated  as  the  ultimate 
arrangement  between  herself  and  the  Transome's. 

After  this  conversation,  which  showed  him  that  what 
happened  to  Felix  touched  Esther  more  closely  than  he  had 
supposed,  the  minister  felt  no  impulse  to  raise  the  images 
of  a  future  so  unlike  anything  that  Felix  would  share. 
And  Esther  would  have  been  unable  to  answer  any  such 
questions.  The  successive  weeks,  instead  of  bringing  her 
nearer  to  clearness  and  decision,  had  only  brought  that 
state  of  disenchantment  belonging  to  the  actual  presence 
of  things  which  have  long  dwelt  in  the  imagination  with 
all  the  factitious  charms  of  arbitrary  arrangement.  Her 
imaginary  mansion  had  not  been  inhabited  just  as  Tran- 
some  Court  was;  her  imaginary  fortune  had  not  been 
attended  with  circumstancesVhich  she  was  unable  to  sweep 
away.  She,  herself,  in  her  Utopia,  had  never  been  what 
she  was  now — a  woman  whose  heart  was  divided  and 
oppressed.  The  first  spontaneous  offering  of  her  woman's 
devotion,  the  first  great  inspiration  of  her  life,  was  a  sort 
of  vanished  ecstasy  which  had  left  its  wounds.  It  seemed 
to  her  a  cruel  misfortune  of  her  young  life  that  her  best 
feeling,  her  most  precious  dependence,  had  been  called 
forth  Just  where  the  conditions  were  hardest,  and  that  all 
the  easy  invitations  of  circumstance  were  toward  some- 
thing which  that  previous  consecration  of  her  longing  had 
made  a  moral  descent  for  her.  It  was  characteristic  of 
her  that  she  scarcely  at  all  entertained  the  alternative  of 
such  a  compromise  as  would  have  given  her  the  larger 
portion  of  the  fortune  to  which  she  had  a  lega^  claim,  and 
yet  have  satisfied  her  sympathy  by  leaving  the  Transomes 
in  possession  of  their  old  home.  Her  domestication  with 
this  family  had  brouglit  them  into  the  foreground  of  her 
imagination;  tlie  gradual  wooing  of  Harold  had  acted  on 
her  with  a  constant  immediate  influence  that  predominated 
over  all  indefinite  prospects;   and  a  solitary  elevation  to 


THE   RADICAL.  395 

wealth,  which  out  of  Utopia  she  had  no  notion  how  she 
should  manage,  looked  as  chill  and  dreary  as  the  offer  of 
dignities  in  an  unknown  country. 

In  the  ages  since  Adam's  marriage,  it  has  been  good  for 
some  men  to  be  alone,  and  for  some  women  also.  But 
Esther  was  not  one  of  these  women :  she  was  intensely  of 
the  feminine  type,  verging  neither  toward  the  saint  noi 
the  angel.  She  was  "a  fair  divided  excellence,  whose 
fullness  of  perfection"  must  be  in  marriage.  And,  like  all 
youthful  creatures,  she  felt  as  if  the  present  conditions  oi 
choice  were  final.  It  belonged  to  the  freshness  of  hei- 
heart  that,  having  had  her  emotions  strongly  stirred  by 
real  objects,  she  never  speculated  on  possible  relations 
yet  to  come.  It  seemed  to  her  that  she  stood  at  the  first 
and  last  parting  of  the  ways.  And,  in  one  sense,  she  was 
under  no  illusion.  It  is  only  in  that  freshness  of  our  time 
that  the  choice  is  possible  which  gives  unity  to  life,  and 
makes  the  memory  a  temple  where  all  relics  and  all  votive 
offerings,  all  worship  and  all  grateful  joy,  are  an  unbroken 
history  sanctified  by  one  religion. 


CHAPTER   XLV. 

We  may  not  make  this  world  a  paradise 
By  walking  it  together  with  clasped  hands 
And  eyes  that  meeting  feed  a  double  strength. 
We  must  be  only  joined  by  pains  divine. 
Of  spirits  blent  in  mutual  memories. 

It  was  a  consequence  of  that  interview  with  her  father, 
that  when  Esther  stepped  early  on  a  gray  March  morning 
into  the  carriage  with  Mrs.  Transome,  to  go  to  the  Loam- 
ford  Assizes,  she  was  full  of  an  expectation  that  held  her 
lips  in  trembling  silence,  and  gave  her  eyes  that  sightless 
beauty  which  tells  that  the  vision  is  all  within. 

Mrs.  Transome  did  not  disturb  her  with  unnecessary 
speech.  Of  late,  Esther's  anxious  observation  had  been 
drawn  to  a  change  in  Mrs.  Transome,  shown  in  many  small 
ways  which  only  women  notice.  It  was  not  only  that 
when  they  sat  together  the  talk  seemed  more  of  an  effort 
to  her:  that  might  have  come  from  the  gradual  draining 
away  of  matter  for  discourse  pertaining  to  most  sorts  of 
companionship,  in  which  repetition  is  not  felt  to  be  as 
desirable    as    novelty.      But   while    Mrs.   Transome   was 


396  PELIX  HOLT, 

dressed  just  as  usual,  took  her  seat  as  usual,  trifled  with 
her  drugs  and  had  her  embroidery  before  her  as  usual,  and 
still  made  her  morning  greetings  with  that  finished  easy 
politeness  and  consideration  of  tone  which  to  rougher 
people  seems  like  affectation,  Esther  noticed  a  strange 
fitfulness  in  her  movements.  Sometimes  the  stitches  of 
her  embroidery  went  on  with  silent  unbroken  swiftness 
for  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  as  if  she  had  to  Avork  out  her 
deliverance  from  bondage  by  finishing  a  scroll-patterned 
border;  then  her  hands  dropped  suddenly  and  her  gaze 
fell  blankly  on  the  table  before  her,  and  she  would  sit  in 
that  way  motionless  as  a  seated  statue,  apparently  uncon- 
scious of  Esther's  presence,  till  some  thought  darting 
within  her  seemed  to  have  the  effect  of  an  external  shock 
and  rouse  her  with  a  start,  when  she  looked  round  hastily 
like  a  person  ashamed  of  having  slept.  Esther,  touched 
with  wondering  pity  at  signs  of  unhappiness  that  were 
new  in  her  experience,  took  the  most  delicate  care  to 
appear  inobservant,  and  only  tried  to  increase  the  gentle 
attention  that  might  help  to  soothe  or  gratify  this  uneasy 
woman.  But,  one  morning,  Mrs.  Transome  had  said, 
breaking  rather  a  long  silence  — 

"  My  dear,  I  shall  make  this  house  dull  for  you.  You 
sit  with  me  like  an  embodied  patience.  I  am  unen- 
durable ;  I  am  getting  into  a  melancholy  dotage.  A 
fidgety  old  woman  like  me  is  as  unpleasant  to  see  as  a 
rook  with  its  wing  broken.  Don't  mind  me,  my  dear. 
Run  away  from  me  without  ceremony.  Every  one  else 
does,  you  see.  I  am  part  of  the  old  furniture  with  new 
drapery." 

"  Dear  Mrs.  Transome,"  said  Esther,  gliding  to  the  low 
ottoman  close  by  the  basket  of  embroidery,  "  do  you  dis- 
like my  sitting  with  you  ?  " 

"■  Only  for  your  own  sake,  my  fairy,"  said  Mrs.  Tran- 
some, smiling  faintly,  and  putting  her  hand  under  Esther's 
chin.     "Doesn't  it  make  you  shudder  to  look  at  me?" 

"Why  will  you  say  such  naughty  things?"  said  Esther, 
affectionately.  "  If  you  had  had  a  daughter,  she  would 
have  desired  to  be  with  you  most  when  you  most  wanted 
cheering.  And  surely  every  young  woman  has  something 
of  a  daughter's  feeling  toward  an  older  one  who  has  been 
kind  to  her." 

"I  should  like  you  to  be  really  my  daughter,"  said  Mrs. 
Transome,  rousing  herself  to  look  a  little  brighter.  "  That 
is  something  still  for  an  old  woman  to  hope  for." 


THE  RADICAL.  397 

Esther  blushed:  she  had  not  foreseen  this  application  of 
words  that  came  from  pit3^ing  tenderness.  To  divert  the 
train  of  thought  as  quickly  as  jjossible,  she  at  once  asked 
what  she  had  previously  had  in  her  mind  to  ask.  Before 
her  blush  had  disappeared  she  said — 

'^Oh,  you  are  so  good;  I  shall  ask  you  to  indulge  me 
very  much.  It  is  to  let  us  set  out  very  early  to  Loamford 
on  Wednesday,  and  put  me  down  at  a  particular  house, 
that  I  may  keep  an  engagement  with  my  father.  It  is  a 
private  matter,  that  I  wish  no  one  to  know  about,  if  possi- 
ble. And  he  will  bring  me  back  to  you  wherever  you 
appoint." 

In  that  way  Esther  won  her  end  without  needing  to 
betray  it;  and  as  Harold  was  already  away  at  Loamford,  she 
was  the  more  secure. 

The  IndeiDendent  minister's  house  at  which  she  was  set 
down,  and  Avhere  she  was  received  by  her  father,  was  in  a 
quiet  street  not  far  from  the  jail.  Esther  had  thrown  a 
dark  cloak  over  the  handsomer  coverings  which  Denner 
had  assured  her  were  absolutely  required  of  ladies  who  sat 
anywhere  near  the  judge  at  a  great  trial;  and  as  the  bonnet 
of  that  day  did  not  throw  the  face  into  high  relief,  but 
rather  into  pers])ective,  a  veil  drawn  down  gave  her  a  suf- 
ficiently inconspicuous  appearance. 

"I  have  arranged  all  tilings,  my  dear,"  said  Mr.  Lyon, 
''and  Felix  expects  us.     We  will  lose  no  time." 

They  walked  away  at  once,  Esther  not  asking  a  question. 
She  had  no  consciousness  of  the  road  along  which  they 
passed;  she  could  never  remember  anything  but  a  dim 
sense  of  entering  within  high  walls  and  going  along  pas- 
sages, till  they  were  ushered  into  a  larger  space  than  she 
expected,  and  her  father  said — 

"It  is  here  that  we  are  permitted  to  see  Felix,  my 
Esther.     He  will  presently  appear." 

Esther  automatically  took  off  her  gloves  and  bonnet,  as 
if  she  had  entered  the  house  after  a  walk.  She  had 
lost  the  complete  consciousness  of  everything  except  that 
she  was  going  to  see  Felix.  She  trembled.  It  seemed 
to  her  as  if  he  too  would  look  altered  after  her  new  life  — 
as  if  even  the  past  would  change  for  her  and  be  no  longer 
a  steadfast  remembrance,  but  something  she  had  been 
mistaken  about,  as  she  had  been  about  the  new  life. 
Perhaps  she  was  growing  out  of  that  childhood  to  which 
common  things  have  rareness,  and  all  objects  look  larger. 
Perliaps  from  henceforth  the  whole  world  was  to  be  meaner 


398  FELIX   HOLT, 

for  her.  The  dread  concentrated  in  those  few  moments 
seemed  worse  than  anything  she  had  known  before.  It 
was  what  the  dread  of  the  pilgrim  might  be  who  has  it 
whispered  to  him  that  the  holy  places  are  a  delusion,  or 
that  he  will  see  them  with  a  soul  unstirred  and  unbe- 
lieving. Every  minute  that  passes  may  be  charged  with 
some  such  crisis  in  the  little  inner  world  of  man  or  woman. 

But  soon  the  door  opened  slightly;  some  one  looked  in; 
then  it  o]iened  wide,  and  Felix  Holt  entered. 

"Miss  Lyon  —  Esther!"  and  her  hand  was  in  his  grasp. 

He  was  just  the  same  —  no,  something  inexpressibly 
better,  because  of  the  distance  and  separation,  and  the 
half-weary  novelties,  which  made  him  like  the  return  of 


morning. 


Take  no  heed  of  me,  children,^'  said  Mr,  Lyon.  "I 
have  some  notes  to  make,  arid  my  time  is  precious.  We 
may  remain  here  only  a  quarter  of  an  hour."  And  the 
old  man  sat  down  at  a  windoAV  with  his  back  to  them, 
writing  with  his  head  bent  close  to  the  paper. 

''You  are  very  pale;  you  look  ill,  compared  with  your 
old  self,"  said  Esther.  She  had  taken  her  hand  away, 
but  they  stood  still  near  each  other,  she  looking  up  at  him. 

"The  fact  is,  I'm  not  fond  of  prison,"  said  Felix, 
smiling;  "but  I  suppose  the  best  I  can  hope  for  is  to  have 
a  good  deal  more  of  it." 

"It  is  thought  that  in  the  worst  case  a  pardon  may  be 
obtained,"  said  Esther,  avoiding  Harold  Transome's  name. 

"I  don't  rely  on  that,"  said  Felix,  shaking  his  head. 
"My  wisest  course  is  to  make  up  my  mind  to  the  very 
ugliest  penalty  they  can  condemn  me  to.  If  I  can  face 
that,  anything  less  will  seem  easy.  But  you  know,"  he 
went  on,  smiling  at  her  brightly,  "I  never  went  in  for 
fine  company  and  cushions.  1  can't  be  very  heavily 
disappointed  in  that  way." 

"Do  you  see  things  just  as  you  used  to  do?"  said 
Esther,  turning  pale  as  she  said  it — "I  mean  —  about 
poverty,  and  the  people  you  will  live  among.  Has  all  the 
misunderstanding  and  sadness  left  you  just  as  obstinate?" 
She  tried  to  smile,  but  could  not  succeed. 

"What  —  about  the  sort  of  life  I  should  lead  if  I  were 
free  again?"  said  Felix. 

"Yes.  I  can't  help  being  discouraged  for  you  by  all 
these  things  that  have  happened.  See  how  vou  may  fail! " 
Esther  spoke  timidly.     She  saw  a  peculiar  smile,  which 


THE    KADICAL.  399 

she  knew  well,  gathering  in  his  eyes.     '^Ah,  I  dare  say  I 
am  silly,"  she  said,  deprecatingly. 

"'No,  you  are  dreadfully  inspired,"  said  Felix.  "When 
the  wicked  Tempter  is  tired  of  snarling  that  word  failure 
in  a  man's  cell,  he  sends  a  voice  like  a  thrush  to  say  it 
for  him.  See  now  what  a  messenger  of  darkness  joii 
are!"  He  smiled,  and  took  her  two  hands  between  his, 
pressed  together  as  children  hold  them  up  in  prayer. 
Both  of  them  felt  too  solemnly  to  be  bashful.  They 
looked  straiglit  into  each  other's  eyes,  as  angels  do  when 
they  tell  some  truth.  And  they  stood  in  that  way  while 
he  went  on  S2:)eaking. 

"But  I'm  proof  against  that  word  failure.  I've  seen 
behind  it.  The  only  failure  a  man  ought  to  fear  is  failure 
in  cleaving  to  the  purpose  he  sees  to  be  best.  As  to  just  the 
amount  of  result  he  may  see  from  his  particular  work  — 
that's  a  tremendous  uncertainty:  the  universe  has  not  been 
arranged  for  the  gratification  of  his  feelings.  As  long  as 
a  man  sees  and  believes  in  some  great  good,  he'll  prefer 
working  toward  that  in  the  way  he's  best  fit  for,  come 
what  may.  I  put  effects  at  their  minimum,  but  I'd  rather 
have  the  minimum  of  effect,  if  it's  of  the  sort  I  care  for, 
than  the  maximum  of  effect  I  don't  care  for  —  a  lot  of  fine 
things  that  are  not  to  my  taste  —  and  if  they  were,  the 
conditions  of  holding  them  while  the  world  is  what  it  is, 
are  such  as  would  jar  on  me  like  grating  metal." 

"  Yes,"  said  Esther,  in  a  kuie  tone,  "I  think  I  under- 
stand that  now,  better  than  I  used  to  do."  The  words  of 
Felix  at  last  seemed  strangely  to  fit  her  own  experience. 
But  she  said  no  more,  though  he  seemed  to  wait  for  it  a 
moment  or  two,  looking  at  her.     But  then  he  went  on  — 

"  I  don't  mean  to  be  illustrious,  you  know,  and  make  a 
new  era,  else  it  would  be  kind  of  you  to  get  a  raven  and 
teach  it  to  croak  "failure'  in  my  ears.  Where  great 
things  can't  happen,  I  care  for  very  small  things,  such  as 
will  never  be  known  beyond  a  few  garrets  and  woi  kshops. 
And  then,  as  to  one  thing  I  believe  in,  I  don't  think  I  can 
altogether  fail.  If  there's  anything  our  people  want  con- 
vincing of,  it  is,  that  there's  some  dignity  and  happiness 
for  a  man  other  than  changing  his  station.  That's  one  of 
the  beliefs  I  clioose  to  consecrate  my  life  to.  If  anybody 
could  demonstrate  to  me  that  I  was  a  flat  for  it,  I  shouldn't 
think  it  would  follow  that  I  must  borrow  money  to  set  up 
genteelly  and  order  new  clothes.  That's  not  a  rigorous 
consequence  to  my  understanding." 


400  FELIX   HOLT, 

They  smiled  at  each  other,  with  the  old  sense  of  amuse- 
ment they  had  so  often  had  together. 

"'  You  are  just  the  same/'  said  Esther. 

"'And  you?"  said  Felix.  "My  affairs  have  been  settled 
long  ago.  But  yours — a  great  change  has  come  m  them — 
magic  at  work." 

"Yes,"  said  Esther,  rather  falteringly. 

"  Well,"  said  Felix,  looking  at  her  gravely  again,  "it^s  &, 
case  of  fitness  that  seems  to  give  a  chance  sanction  to  that 
musty  law.  The  first  time  I  saw  you  your  birth  was  an 
immense  puzzle  to  me.  However,  the  appropriate  con- 
ditions are  come  at  last." 

These  words  seemed  cruel  to  Esther.  But  Felix  could 
not  know  all  the  reasons  for  their  seeming  so.  She  could 
Eiot  speak;  she  was  turning  cold  and  feeling  her  heart  beat 
painfully. 

"All  your  tastes  are  gratified  now,"  he  went  on  inno- 
cently. "But  you'll  remember  the  old  pedagogue  and  his 
lectures?" 

One  thought  in  the  mind  of  Felix  was,  that  Esther  was 
sure  to  marry  Harold  Transonic.  Men  readily  believe 
these  things  of  the  women  who  love  them.  But  he  could 
not  allude  to  the  marriage  more  directly.  He  was  afraid 
of  this  destiny  for  her,  without  having  any  very  distinct 
knowledge  by  which  to  justify  his  fear  to  the  mind  of 
another.  It  did  not  satisfy  him  that  Esther  should  marry 
Harold  Transome. 

"My  children,"  said  Mr.  Lyon  at  this  moment,  not 
looking  round,  but  only  looking  close  at  his  watch,  "  avc 
have  just  two  minutes  more."     Then  he  went  on  writing. 

Esther  did  not  speak,  but  Felix  could  not  help  observing 
now  that  her  hands  had  turned  to  a  deathly  coldness,  and 
that  she  Avas  trembling.  He  believed,  he  knew,  that  what- 
ever prospects  she  had,  this  feeling  was  for  his  sake.  An 
overpowering  impulse  from  mingled  love,  gratitude,  and 
anxiety,  urged  him  to  say — 

_  "I  had  a  horrible  struggle,  Esther.  But  you  see  I  was 
right.  There  was  a  fitting  lot  in  reserve  for  you.  But 
remember  you  have  cost  a  great  price — don't  throw  what 
is  precious  away.  I  shall  want  the  news  that  you  have  a 
haiipiness  worthy  of  you." 

Esther  felt  too  miserable  for  tears  to  come.  She  looked 
helplessly  at  Felix  for  a  moment,  then  took  her  hands  from 
his,  and,  turning  away  mutely,  walked  dreamily  toward 


THE   KADICAL.  401 

her  father,  and  said,  "Father,  I  am  ready — there  is  no 
more  to  say." 

She  turned  back  again,  toward  the  chair  where  her 
bonnet  lay,  with  a  face  quite  corpse-like  above  her  dark 
garments. 

"Esther!" 

She  heard  Felix  say  the  word,  with  an  entreating  cry, 
and  went  toward  him  with  the  swift  movement  of  a  fright- 
ened child  toward  its  protector.  He  clasped  her,  and  they 
kissed  each  other. 

She  never  could  recall  anything  else  that  happened,  till 
she  was  in  the  carriage  again  with  Mrs.  Transome. 


CHAPTER  XLVI. 

Why,  there  ai-e  maidens  of  heroic  touch, 
And  >'et  they  seem  like  things  of  gossamer 
You'd  pinch  the  life  out  of,  as  out  of  moths. 
Oh,  it  is  not  loud  tones  and  mouthingness, 
"Tis  not  the  arras  akimbo  and  large  strides, 
That  make  a  woman's  force.    The  tiniest  birds. 
With  softest  downy  breasts,  have  passions  in  them. 
And  are  brave  with  love. 

Esther  was  so  placed  in  the  Court,  under  Mrs.  Tran- 
sorae^s  wing,  as  to  see  and  hear  everything  without  effort. 
Harold  had  received  them  at  the  hotel,  and  had  observed 
that  Esther  looked  ill,  and  Avas  unusually  abstracted  in 
her  manner;  but  this  seemed  to  be  sufficiently  accounted 
for  by  her  sympathetic  anxiety  about  the  result  of  a  trial 
in  which  the  prisoner  at  the  bar  was  a  friend,  and  in  which 
both  her  father  and  himself  were  important  witnesses. 
Mrs.  Transome  had  no  reluctance  to  keep  a  small  secret 
from  her  son,  and  no  betrayal  was  made  of  that  previous 
"  engagement "  of  Esther's  with  her  father.  Harold  was 
particularly  delicate  and  unobtrusive  in  his  attentions 
to-day:  he  had  the  consciousness  that  he  was  going  to 
behave  in  a  way  that  woiUd  gratify  Esther  and  win  her 
admiration,  and  we  are  all  of  us  made  more  graceful  by 
the  inward  presence  of  what  we  believe  to  be  a  generous 
purpose;  our  actions  move  to  a  hidden  music — "a  melody 
that's  sweetly  played  in  tune." 

If  Esther  had  been  less  absorbed  by  supreme  feelings, 
she  would  have  been  aware   that  she  was  an  object  of 
special  notice,     Ip.  the  bare  squareness  of  a  public  hall, 
26 


403  EELIX    HOLT, 

where  there  was  not  one  jutting  angle  to  hang  a  guess  or  a 
thought  upon,  not  an  image  or  a  bit  of  color  to  stir  the 
fancy,  and  where  the  only  objects  of  speculation,  of  admi- 
ration, or  of  any  interest  whatever,  were  hiiman  beings, 
and  especially  the  human  beings  that  occupied  positions 
indicating  some  importance,  the  notice  bestowed  on  Esther 
would  not  ha\t  been  surprising,  even  if  it  had  been  merely 
a  tribute  to  her  youthful  charm,  which  was  well  compan- 
ioned by  Mrs.  Transome's  elderly  majesty.  But  it  was  due 
also  to  whisperings  that  she  was  an  hereditary  claimant  of 
the  Transonic  estates,  whom  Harold  Transome  was  about 
to  rnarry.  Harold  himself  had  of  late  not  cared  to  conceal 
either  the  fact  or  the  probability:  they  both  tended  rather 
to  his  honor  than  his  dishonor.  And  to-day,  when  there 
was  a  good  proportion  of  Trebians  present,  the  whisper- 
ings spread  rapidly. 

The  Court  was  still  more  crowded  than  on  the  previous 
day,  when  our  poor  acquaintance  Dredge  and  his  two 
collier  companions  were  sentenced  to  a  year's  imprison- 
ment Avith  hard  labor,  and  tlie  more  enlightened  prisoner, 
who  stole  the  Debarry's  plate,  to  ti'ansportation  for  life. 
Poor  Dredge  had  cried,  had  wished  he'd  "never  hearedof 
a  'lection,'"'  and  in  spite  of  sermons  from  the  jail  chaplain, 
fell  back  on  the  explanation  that  this  was  a  world  in  whidi 
8pratt  and  Old  Nick  were  sure  to  get  the  best  of  it;  so  that 
in  Dredge's  case,  at  least,  most  observers  must  have  had 
the  melancholy  conviction  that  there  had  been  no  enhance- 
ment of  public  spirit  and  faith  in  progress  from  that  wave 
of  political  agitation  which  had  reached  the  Sproxton  Pits. 

But  curiosity  was  necessarily  at  a  higher  pitch  to-day, 
when  the  character  of  the  prisoner  and  the  circumstances 
of  his  offense  were  of  a  highly  unusual  kind.  Soon  as  Felix 
appeared  at  the  bar,  a  murmur  rose  and  spread  into  a  loud 
buzz,  which  continued  until  there  had  been  repeated 
authoritative  calls  for  silence  in  the  Court.  Eather  sin- 
gularly, it  was  now  for  the  first  time  that  Esther  had  a 
feeling  of  pride  in  him  on  the  ground  simply  of  his  appear- 
ance. At  this  moment,  when  he  was  the  centre  of  a  multi- 
tudinous gaze,  which  seemed  to  act  on  her  own  vision  like 
a  broad  unmitigated  daylight,  she  felt  that  there  was  some- 
thing pre-eminent  in  him,  notwithstanding  the  vicinity 
of  numerous  gentlemen.  No  apple-woman  would  have 
admired  him;  not  only  to  feminine  minds  like  Mrs.  Tiliot's, 
but  to  many  minds  in  coat  and  waistcoat,  there  was  some- 
thing  dangerous   and   perhaps  unprincipled  in  his  bare 


THE    RADICAL.  403 

throat  and  great  Gothic  head;  and  his  somewhat  massive 
person  would  doubtless  have  come  out  very  oddly  from  the 
hands  of  a  fashionable  tailor  of  that  time.  But  as  Esther 
saw  his  large  gray  ejes  looking  round  calmly  and  undefi- 
antly,  first  at  the  audience  generally,  and  then  with  a  more 
observant  expression  at  the  lawyers  and  other  persons 
immediately  around  him,  she  felt  that  he  bore  the  outward 
stamp  of  a  distinguished  nature.  Forgive  her  if  she 
needed  this  satisfaction;  all  of  us,  whether  men  or  women, 
are  liable  to  this  weakness  of  liking  to  have  our  preference 
justified  before  others  as  well  as  ourselves.  Esther  said 
inwardly,  with  a  certain  triumph,  that  Felix  Holt  looked 
as  worthy  to  be  chosen  in  the  midst  of  this  large  assembly, 
as  he  had  ever  looked  in  their  tete-a-tete  under  the  sombre 
light  of  the  little  parlor  in  Malthouse  Yard. 

Esther  had  felt  some  relief  in  hearing  from  her  father 
that  Felix  had  insisted  on  doing  without  his  mother's 
presence;  and  since  to  Mrs.  Holt's  imagination,  notwith- 
standing her  general  desire  to  have  her  character  inquired 
into,  there  was  no  greatly  consolatory  difference  between 
being  a  Avitness  and  a  criminal,  and  an  appearance  of  any 
kind  "before  the  Judge"  could  hardly  be  made  to  suggest 
anything  definite  that  would  overcome  the  dim  sense  of 
unalleviated  disgrace,  she  had  been  less  inclined  than  usual 
to  complain  of  her  son's  decision.  Esther  had  shuddered 
beforehand  at  the  inevitable  farce  there  would  be  in  Mrs. 
Holt's  testimony.  But  surely  Felix  would  lose  something 
for  want  of  a  witness  who  could  testify  to  his  behavior  in 
the  morning  before  he  became  involved  in  the  tumult? 

"He  is  really  a  fine  young  fellow,"  said  Harold,  coming 
to  speak  to  Esther  after  a  colloquy  with  the  prisoner's 
solicitor.  ^'I  hope  lie  will  not  make  a  blunder  in  defend- 
ing himself." 

"  He  is  not  likely  to  make  a  blunder,"  said  Esther.  She 
had  recovered  her  color  a  little,  and  was  brighter  than  she 
had  been  all  the  morning  before. 

Felix  had  seemed  to  include  her  in  his  general  glance, 
but  had  avoided  looking  at  her  particularly.  She  under- 
stood how  delicate  feeling  for  her  vv'ould  prevent  this,  and 
that  she  might  safely  look  at  him,  and  toward  her  father, 
whom  she  could  see  in  the  same  direction.  Turning  to 
Harold,  to  make  an  observation,  she  saw  that  he  was 
looking  toward  the  same  point,  but  with  an  expression 
on  his  face  that  surprised  her. 

"  Dear  me,"  she  said,  prompted  to  speak  without  any 


404  FELIX  HOLT, 

reflection;  ^Hiow  angry  you  look!  I  never  saw  you  look 
so  ixngry  before.     It  is  not  my  father  jon  are  looking  at?" 

"Oh,  no!  I  am  angry  at  something  I'm  looking  away 
from,"  said  Harold,  making  an  effort  to  drive  back  the 
troublesome  demon  who  would  stare  out  at  window.  "It's 
that  Jermyn,"  he  added,  glancing  at  his  toother  as  well 
as  Esther.  "  He  will  thrust  himself  under  my  eyes  every- 
where since  I  refused  him  an  interview  and  returned  his 
letter.  I'm  determined  never  to  speak  to  him  directly 
again,  if  I  can  help  it." 

Mrs.  Transonic  heard  with  a  changeless  face.  She  had 
for  some  time  been  watching,  and  had  taken  on  her  marble 
look  of  immobility.  She  said  an  inward  bitter  "  Of  course! " 
to  everything  that  was  unpleasant. 

After  this  Esther  soon  became  impatient  of  all  speech: 
her  attention  was  riveted  on  the  proceedings  of  the  Court, 
and  on  the  mode  in  which  Felix  bore  himself.  In  the  case 
for  the  prosecution  there  was  nothing  more  than  a  repro- 
duction, with  irrelevancies  added  by  witnesses,  of  the  facts 
already  known  to  us.  Spratt  had  retained  consciousness 
enough,  in  the  midst  of  his  terror,  to  swear  that,  when  he 
was  tied  to  the  finger-post,  Felix  was  presiding  over  the 
actions  of  the  mob.  The  landlady  of  the  Seven  Stars,  who 
was  indebted  to  Felix  for  rescue  from  pursuit  by  some 
drunken  rioters,  gave  evidence  that  went  to  prove  his 
assumption  of  leadership  prior  to  the  assault  on  Spratt, — 
remembering  only  that  he  had  called  away  her  pursuers  to 
"better  sport."  Various  respectable  witnesses  swore'  to 
Felix's  "  encouragement"  of  the  rioters  who  were  dragging 
Spratt  in  King  Street;  to  his  fatal  assault  on  Tucker;  and 
to  his  attitude  in  front  of  the  drawing-room  window  at  the 
Manor. 

Three  other  witnesses  gave  evidence  of  expressions  used 
by  the  prisoner,  tending  to  show  the  character  of  the  acts 
with  which  he  was  charged.  Two  were  Treby  tradesmen, 
the  third  was  a  clerk  from  Duffield.  The  clerk  had  heard 
Felix  speak  at  Duffield;  the  Treby  men  had  frequently 
heard  him  declare  himself  on  public  matters;  and  they 
all  quoted  expressions  which  tended  to  show  that  he 
had  a  virulent  feeling  against  the  respectable  shopkeep- 
ing_  class,  and  that  nothing  was  likely  to  be  more  con- 
genial to  him  than  the  gutting  of  retailers'  shops.  No 
one  else  knew — the  witnesses  themselves  did  not  know 
-^l^y — ^low  far  their  strong  perception  and  memory  on 
these  points  was  due  to  a    fourth   mind,  namely,  that 


THE    RADICAL.  405 

of  Mr.  John  Johnson,  the  attorney,  who  was  nearly 
related  to  one  of  the  Treby  witnesses,  and  a  familiar 
acquaintance  of  the  Duffield  clerk.  Man  cannot  be  defined 
as  an  evidence-giving  animal;  and  in  the  difficulty  of  get- 
ting up  evidence  on  an}'  subject,  there  is  room  for  much 
unrecognized  action  of  diligent  persons  who  have  the 
extra  stimulus  of  some  private  motive.  Mr.  Johnson  v/as 
present  in  Court  to-day,  but  in  a  modest,  retired  situation. 
He  had  come  down  to  give  information  to  Mr.  Jermyn, 
and  to  gather  information  in  other  quarters,  which  was 
well  illuminated  by  the  appearance  of  Esther  in  company 
with  the  Transomes. 

When  the  case  for  the  prosecution  closed,  all  strangers 
thought  that  it  looked  very  black  for  the  prisoner.  In 
two  instances  only  Felix  had  chosen  to  jsut  a  cross-exam- 
ining question.  The  first  was  to  ask  Spratt  if  he  did  not 
believe  that  his  having  been  tied  to  the  jDOst  had  saved  him 
from  a  probably  mortal  injury?  The  second  was  to  ask 
the  tradesman  who  swore  to  his  having  heard  Felix  tell 
the  rioters  to  leave  Tucker  alone  and  come  along  with  him, 
whether  he  had  not,  shortly  before,  heard  cries  among  the 
mob  summoning  to  an  attack  on  the  wine-vaults  and 
brewery. 

Esther  had  hitherto  listened  closely  but  calmly.  She 
knew  that  there  would  be  this  strong  adverse  testimony  ; 
and  all  her  hopes  and  fears  were  bent  on  what  was  to 
come  beyond  it.  It  was  when  the  prisoner  was  asked 
what  he  had  to  adduce  in  reply  that  she  felt  herself  in 
the  grasp  of  that  tremor  which  does  not  disable  tlie  mind, 
but  rather  gives  keener  consciousness  of  a  mind  having  a 
penalty  of  l)ody  attached  to  it. 

There  was  a  silence  as  of  night  when  Felix  Holt  began 
to  speak.  His  voice  was  firm  and  clear:  he  spoke  with 
simple  gravity,  and  evidently  without  any  enjoyment  of 
the  occasion.  Esther  had  never  seen  his  face  look  so 
weary. 

"  My  Lord,  I  am  not  going  to  occupy  the  time  of  the 
Court  with  unnecessary  words.  I  believe  the  witnesses 
for  the  prosecution  have  spoken  the  truth  as  far  as  a 
superficial  observation  would  enable  them  to  do  it;  and  I 
see  nothing  that  can  weigh  with  tlie  jury  in  my  favor, 
unless  they  believe  my  statement  of  my  own  motives, 
and  the  testimony  that  certain  witnesses  will  give  to  my 
character  and  purposes  as  being  inconsistent  with  my 
willingly  abetting  disorder.     I  will  tell  the  Court  in  as 


406  FELIX   HOLT, 

few  words  as  I  can,  how  I  got  entangled  in  the  mob,  how 
I  came  to  attack  the  constable,  and  how  I  was  led  to  take 
a  course  which  seems  rather  mad  to  myself,  now  I  look 
back  upon  it." 

Felix  then  gave  a  concise  narrative  of  his  motives  and 
conduct  on  the  day  of  the  riot,  from  the  moment  when 
he  was  startled  into  quitting  his  work  by  the  earlier  uproar 
of  the  morning.  He  omitted,  of  course,  his  visit  to  Malt- 
house  Yard,  and  merely  said  that  he  went  out  to  walk 
again  after  returning  to  quiet  his  mother's  mind.  He  got 
warmed  by  the  story  of  his  experience,  which  moved  him 
more  strongly  than  ever,  now  he  recalled  it  in  vibrating 
words  before  a  large  audience  of  his  fellow-men.  The 
sublime  delight  of  truthful  speech  to  one  who  has  the 
great  gift  of  uttering  it,  will  make  itself  felt  even  through 
the  pangs  of  sorrow. 

"That  is  all  I  have  to  say  for  myself,  my  Lord.  I 
pleaded  'Not  guilty'  to  the  charge  of  manslaughter, 
because  I  know  that  word  may  carry  a  meaning  which 
would  not  fairly  apply  to  my  act.  When  I  threw  Tucker 
down,  I  did  not  see  the  possibility  that  he  would  die  from 
a  sort  of  attack  which  ordinarily  occurs  in  fighting  without 
any  fatal  effect.  As  to  my  assaulting  a  constable,  it  was  a 
quick  choice  between  two  evils:  I  should  else  have  been 
disabled.  And  he  attacked  me  under  a  mistake  about  my 
intentions.  I'm  not  prepared  to  say  I  never  would  assault 
a  constable  where  I  had  more  chance  of  deliberation.  1 
certainly  should  assault  him  if  I  saw  him  doing  anything 
that  made  my  blood  boil:  I  reverence  the  law,  but  not 
Avhere  it  is  a  pretext  for  wrong,  which  it  should  be  the  very 
object  of  law  to  hinder.  I  consider  that  I  should  be 
making  an  unworthy  defense,  if  I  let  the  Court  infer  from 
what  I  say  myself,  or  from  what  is  said  by  my  witnesses, 
that  because  I  am  a  man  who  hates  drunken,  motiveless 
disorder,  or  any  wanton  harm,  therefore  I  am  a  man  who 
would  never  fight  against  authority:  I  hold  it  blasphemy 
to  say  that  a  man  ought  not  to  fight  against  authority: 
there  is  no  great  religion  and  no  great  freedom  that  has 
not  done  it,  in  the  beginning.  It  would  be  impertinent  for 
me  to  speak  of  this  now,  if  I  did  not  need  to  say  in  my 
own  defense,  that  I  should  hold  myself  the  worst  sort  of 
traitor  if  I  put  my  hand  to  either  fighting  or  disorder — 
which  must  mean  to  injure  somebody — if  I  were  not  urged 
to  it  by  what  I  hold  to  be  sacred  feelings,  making  a  sacred 
duty  either  to  my  own   manhood  or  to    my  fellow-man. 


THE   RADICAL.  407 

And  certainly.''  Felix  ended,  with  a  strong  ring  of 
scorn  in  his  voice,  "I  never  held  it  a  sacred  duty  to  try 
and  get  a  Radical  candidate  returned  for  North  Loamshire, 
by  Avillingly  heading  a  drunken  howling  mob,  Avhose  public 
action  must  consist  in  breaking  windows,  destroying  hard- 
got  produce,  and  endangering  the  lives  of  men  and  women. 
1  have  no  more  to  say,  my  Lord." 

"J  foresaw  he  Avould  make  a  blunder,"  said  Harold,  in 
a  low  voice  to  Esther.  Then,  seeing  her  shrink  a  little, 
he  feared  she  might  suspect  him  of  being  merely  stung  by 
the  allusion  to  himself.  ''  I  don't  mean  what  he  said  about 
the  Radical  candidate,"  he  added,  hastily,  in  correction. 
"  I  don't  mean  the  last  sentence.  I  mean  that  whole  pero- 
ration of  his,  Avhich  he  ought  to  have  left  unsaid.  It  has 
done  him  harm  with  the  jury — they  won't  understand  it,  or 
rather  will  misunderstand  it.  And  I'll  answer  for  it,  it  has 
soured  tlie  judge.  It  remains  to  be  seen  what  Ave  witnesses 
can  say  foi'  him,  to  nullify  the  effect  of  what  he  has  said 
for  himself.  I  hope  the  attorney  has  done  liis  best  in  col- 
lecting the  evidence:  I  understand  the  expense  of  the 
witnesses  is  undertaken  by  some  Liberals  at  Glasgow  and 
in  Lancashire,  friends  of  Holt's.  But  I  suj)pose  your 
father  has  told  you." 

The  first  witness  called  to  the  defense  was  Mr.  Lyon. 
The  gist  of  his  statements  was,  that  from  the  beginning 
of  September  last  until  the  day  of  the  election  he  was  in 
very  frequent  intercourse  with  the  prisoner;  that  he  had 
become  intimately  acquainted  with  his  character  and  views 
of  life,  and  his  conduct  with  respect  to  the  election,  and 
that  these  were  totally  inconsistent  with  any  other  suppo- 
sition than  his  being  involved  in  the  riot,  and  his  fatal 
encounter  with  the  constable,  were  due  to  the  caliimitous 
failure  of  a  bold  but  good  purpose.  He  stated  further  that 
he  had  l)een  present  when  an  interview  had  occurred  in  his 
own  house  between  the  prisoner  and  Mr.  Harold  Transome, 
who  was  then  canvassing  for  the  representation  of  North 
Loamshire.  That  the  object  of  the  prisoner  in  seeking 
this  interview  had  been  to  inform.  Mr.  Transome  of  treat- 
ing given  in  his  name  to  the  workmen  in  the  pits  and  on 
the  canal  at  Sjiroxton,  and  to  remonstrate  against  its  con- 
tinuance; the  prisoner  fearing  that  disturbance  and  mis- 
chief might  result  from  what  he  believed  to  be  the  end 
toward  which  tliis  treating  was  directed  —  namely,  the 
presence  of  these  men  on  the  occasions  of  the  nomination 
and  polling.     Several  times  after  this  interview,  Mr.  Lyon 


408  FELIX   HOLT, 

said^  he  had  heard  Felix  Holt  recur  to  the  subject  therein 
discussed  with  expressions  of  grief  and  anxiety.  He  him- 
self was  in  the  habit  of  visiting  Sproxton  in  his  ministerial 
capacity:  he  knew  fully  what  the  23nsoner  had  done  there 
in  order  to  found  a  night  school,  and  was  certain  that  the 
prisoner's  interest  in  the  working  men  of  that  district 
turned  entirely  on  the  possibility  of  converting  them  some- 
what to  habits  of  soberness  and  to  a  due  care  for  the 
instruction  of  their  children.  Finally,  he  stated  that  the 
prisoner,  in  compliance  with  his  request,  had  been  present 
at  Duffield  on  the  day  of  the  nomination,  and  had  on  his 
return  expressed  himself  with  strong  indignation  concern- 
ing the  employment  of  tlie  Sproxton  men  on  that  occasion, 
and  what  he  called  the  wickedness  of  hiring  blind  violence. 

The  quaint  appearance  and  manner  of  the  little  Dissent- 
ing minister  could  not  fail  to  stimulate  the  peculiar  wit  of 
the  bar.  He  was  subjected  to  a  troublesome  cross-exami- 
nation, which  he  bore  with  wide-eyed  shortsighted  quietude 
and  absorption  in  the  duty  of  truthful  response.  On 
being  asked,  rather  sneeringly,  if  the  priscmer  was  not  one 
of  his  flock?  he  answered,  in  that  deeper  tone  which  made 
one  of  the  most  effective  transitions  of  his  varying  voice — 

"Nay — would  to  God  he  were!  I  should  tlien  feel  that 
the  great  virtues  and  the  pure  life  I  have  beheld  in  him 
were  a  witness  to  the  efficacy  of  the  faith  I  believe  in  and 
the  discipline  of  the  Church  Avhereunto  I  belong.^' 

Perhaj)s  it  required  a  larger  power  of  comparison  than 
was  possessed  by  any  of  that  audience  to  appreciate  the 
moral  elevation  of  an  Independent  minister  Avho  could 
utter  those  words.  Nevertheless  there  was  a  murmur, 
which  was  clearly  one  of  sympathy. 

The  next  witness,  and  the  one  on  whom  the  interest 
of  the  spectators  was  chiefly  concentrated,  was  Harold 
Transome.  There  was  a  decided  predominance  of  Tory 
feeling  in  the  Court,  and  the  human  disposition  to  enjoy 
the  infliction  of  a  little  punishment  on  an  opposite  party, 
was,  in  this  instance,  of  a  Tory  complexion.  Harold  was 
keenly  alive  to  this,  and  to  everything  else  that  might 
prove  disagreeable  to  him  in  his  having  to  appear  in  the 
witness-l)ox.  But  he  was  not  likely  to  lose  his  self-posses- 
sion, or  to  fail  in  adjusting  himself  gracefully,  under  condi- 
tions whicii  most  men  would  find  it  difficult  to  carry  with- 
out awkwardness.  He  had  generosity  and  candor  enough 
to  bear  Felix  Holt's  proud  rejection  of  his  advances  with- 
out any  petty  resentment;  he  had  all  the  susceptibilities  of 


THE   RADICAL.  409 

a  gentleman;  and  these  moral  qualities  gave  the  right 
direction  to  his  acumen,  in  Judging  of  the  behavior  that 
would  best  secure  his  dignity.  Everything  requiring  self- 
command  was  easier  to  him  because  of  Esther's  presence; 
for  her  admiration  was  just  then  the  object  which  this 
well-tanned  man  of  the  world  had  it  most  at  heart  to 
secure. 

When  he  entered  the  witness-box  he  was  much  admired 
by  the  ladies  amongst  the  audience,  many  of  whom  sighed 
a  little  at  the  thought  of  his  wrong  course  in  politics.  He 
certainly  looked  like  a  handsome  portrait  by  Sir  Thomas 
Lawrence,  in  Avhich  that  remarkable  artist  had  happily 
omitted  the  usual  excess  of  honeyed  blandness  mixed 
with  alert  intelligence,  which  is  hardly  compatible  with 
the  state  of  man  out  of  paradise.  He  stood  not  far  off 
Felix;  and  the  two  Radicals  certainly  made  a  striking  con- 
trast. Felix  might  have  come  from  the  hands  of  a  sculptor 
in  the  later  Roman  period,  Avhen  the  plastic  impulse  was 
stirred  by  the  grandeur  of  barbaric  forms — when  rolled 
collars  were  not  yet  conceived,  and  satin  stocks  were  not. 

Harold  Transonic  declared  he  had  had  only  one  interview 
with  the  prisoner:  it  was  the  interview  referred  to  by  the 
previous  witness,  in  whose  presence  and  in  whose  house  it 
was  begun.  The  interview,  however,  was  continued  beyond 
the  observation  of  Mr.  Lyon.  The  prisoner  and  himself 
quitted  the  Dissenting  minister's  house  in  Malthouse  Yard 
together,  and  proceeded  to  the  office  of  Mr.  Jermyn,  who 
was  then  conducting  electioneering  business  on  his  behalf. 
His  object  was  to  comply  with  Holt's  remonstrance  by 
inquiring  into  the  alleged  proceedings  at  Sproxton,  and,  if 
possible,  to  put  a  stop  to  them.  Holt's  language,  both  in 
Malthouse  Yard  and  in  the  attorney's  office,  was  strong: 
he  was  evidently  indignant,  and  his  indignation  turned  on 
the  danger  of  employing  ignorant  men  excited  by  drink  on 
an  occasion  of  popular  concourse.  He  believed  that  Holt's 
sole  motive  was  the  prevention  of  disorder,  and  what  he 
considered  the  demoralization  of  the  workmen  by  treating. 
The  event  had  certainly  justified  his  remonstrances.  He 
had  not  had  any  subsequent  opportunities  of  observing 
the  prisoner;  but  if  any  reliance  was  to  be  placed  on  a 
rational  conclusion,  it  must,  he  thought,  be  plain  that  the 
anxiety  thus  manifested  by  Holt  was  a  guarantee  of  the 
statement  he  had  made  as  to  his  motives  on  the  day  of  the 
riot.  His  entire  impression  from  Holt's  manner  in  that 
single  interview  was  that,  he  was  a  moral  and  political 


410  FELIX   HOLT, 

enthusiast,  wlio,  if  he  sought  to  coerce  others,  would  seek 
to  coerce  them  into  a  difficult,  and  perhaps  impracticable, 
scrupulosity. 

Harold  spoke  with  as  noticeable  directness  and  empha- 
sis, as  if  what  he  said  could  have  no  reaction  on  himself. 
He  had  of  course  not  entered  unnecessarily  into  what 
occurred  in  Jermyn's  office.  But  now  he  was  subjected 
to  a  cross-examination  on  this  subject,  which  gave  rise  to 
some  subdued  shrugs,  smiles,  and  winks,  among  county 
gentlemen. 

The  questions  were  directed  so  as  to  bring  out,  if  pos- 
sible, some  indication  that  Felix  Holt  was  moved  to  his 
remonstrance  by  personal  resentment  against  the  political 
agents  concerned  in  setting  on  foot  the  treating  at  Sprox- 
ton,  but  such  questioning  is  a  sort  of  target-shooting  that 
sometimes  hits  about  widely.  The  cross-examining  coun- 
sel had  close  connections  among  the  Tories  of  Loamshire, 
and  enjoyed  his  business  to-day.  Under  the  fire  of  various 
questions  about  Jermyn  and  'the  agent  employed  by  him  at 
Sproxton,  Harold  got  warm,  and  in  one  of  his  replies  said, 
Avith  rapid  sharpness — 

''  Mr.  Jermyn  was  my  agent  then,  not  now:  I  have  no 
longer  any  but  hostile  relations  with  him." 

The  sense  that  he  had  shown  a  slight  heat  would  have 
vexed  Harold  more  if  he  had  not  got  some  satisfaction  out 
of  the  thought  that  Jermyn  heard  those  words.  He  recov- 
ered his  good  temper  quickly,  and  when,  subsequently,  the 
question  came — 

''You  acquiesced  in  the  treating  of  the  Sproxton  men, 
as  necessary  to  the  efficient  working  of  the  reformed  con- 
stituency?" Harold  replied,  with  quiet  fluency — 

"Yes;  on  my  return  to  England,  before  I  put  up  for 
North  Loamshire,  I  got  the  best  advice  from  practiced 
agents,  both  Whig  and  Tory.  They  all  agreed  as  to  elec- 
tioneering measures. " 

The  next  witness  was  Michael  Brincey,  otherwise  Mike 
Briudle,  who  gave  evidence  of  the  sayings  and  doings  of 
the  prisoner  among  the  Sproxton  men.  Mike  declared 
that  Felix  went  "  uncommon  again'  drink,  and  pitch-and- 
toss,  and  quarreling,  and  sich,''  and  was  "all  for  schooling 
and  bringing  up  the  little  chaps";  but  on  being  cross- 
examined,  he  admitted  that  he  "couldn't  give  much 
account";  that  Felix  did  talk  again'  idle  folks,  whethei- 
poor  or  rich,  and  that  most  like  he  meant  the  rich,  who 
had  "a  rights  to  l)e  idle," which  was  what  he,  Mike,  liked 


THE   EADICAL.  411 

himself  sometimes,  though  for  the  most  part  he  was  "a 
hard-working  butty.''  On  being  cheeked  for  this  super- 
fluous allegation  of  his  own  theory  and  practice,  Mike 
became  timidly  conscious  that  answering  was  a  great  mys- 
tery beyond  the  reaches  of  a  butty's  soul,  and  began  to 
err  from  defect  instead  of  excess.  Hov/ever,  he  reasserted 
that  what  Felix  most  wanted  was,  ''to  get  'em  to  set  up  a 
school  for  the  little  chaps." 

With  the  two  succeeding  witnesses,  who  swore  to  the 
fact  that  Felix  had  tried  to  lead  the  mob  along  Hobb's 
Lane  instead  of  toward  the  Manor,  and  to  the  violently 
threatening  character  of  Tucker's  attack  on  him,  the  case 
for  the  defense  was  understood  to  close. 

Meanwhile  Esther  had  been  looking  on  and  listening 
with  growing  misery,  in  the  sense  that  all  had  not  been 
said  which  might  have  been  said  on  behalf  of  Felix.  If 
it  was  the  jury  who  were  to  be  acted  on,  she  argued 
to  herself,  there  might  have  been  an  impression  made  on 
their  feelings  which  would  determine  their  verdict.  Was 
it  not  constantly  said  and  seen  that  juries  pronounced 
Guilty  or  Not  (xuilty  from  sympathy  for  or  against  the 
accused?  She  was  too  inexperienced  to  check  her  own 
argument  by  thoroughly  representing  to  herself  the  course 
of  things:  how  the  counsel  for  the  prosecution  would 
reply,  and  how  the  judge  would  sum  up,  with  the  object 
of  cooling  down  sympathy  into  deliberation.  What  she 
had  painfully  pressing  on  her  inward  vision  was  that  the 
trial  was  coming  to  an  end,  and  that  the  voice  of  right  and 
truth  had  not  been  strong  enough. 

AVhen  a  woman  feels  purely  and  nobly,  that  ardor  of 
hers  which  breaks  through  formulas  too  rigorously  urged 
on  men  by  daily  practical  needs,  makes  one  of  her  most 
precious  influences:  she  is  the  added  impulse  that  shatters 
the  stiffening  crust  of  cautious  experience.  Her  inspired 
ignorance  gives  a  sublimity  to  actions  so  incongruously 
simple,  that  otherwise  they  would  make  men  smile.  Some 
of  that  ardor  which  has  flashed  out  and  illuminated  all 
poetry  and  history  was  burning  to-day  in  the  bosom  of 
sweet  Esther  Lyon.  In  this,  at  least,  her  woman's  lot  was 
perfect:  that  the  man  she  loved  was  her  hero;  that  her 
woman's  passion  and  her  reverence  for  rarest  goodness 
rushed  together  m  an  undivided  current.  And  to-day  they 
were  making  one  danger,  one  terror,  one  irresistible  im- 
pulse for  her  heart.  Her  feelings  were  growing  into  a 
necessity  for  action,  rather  than  a  resolve  to  act.      She 


412  FELIX    HOLT, 

could  not  support  the  thought  that  the  trial  would  come 
to  an  end,  that  sentence  would  be  passed  on  Felix,  and 
that  all  the  while  something  had  been  omitted  which 
might  have  been  said  for  him.  There  had  been  no 
witness  to  tell  what  had  been  his  behavior  and  state  of 
mind  Just  before  the  riot.  She  must  do  it.  It  was 
possible.  There  was  time.  But  not  too  much  time.  All 
other  agitation  became  merged  in  eagerness  not  to  let  the 
moment  escape.  The  last  witness  was  being  called.  Har- 
old Transome  had  not  been  able  to  get  back  to  her  on 
leaving  the  witness-box,  but  Mr.  Lingon  was  close  by  her. 
With  firm  quickness  she  said  to  him  — 

''Pray  tell  the  attorney  that  I  have  evidence  to  give  for 
the  prisoner  —  lose  no  time." 

"Do  you  know  what  you  are  going  to  say,  my  dear?" 
said  Mr.  Lingon,  looking  at  her  in  astonishment. 

"Yes  —  I  entreat  you,  for  God's  sake,"  said  Esther,  in 
that  low  tone  of  urgent  beseeching  which  is  equivalent  to 
a  cry;  and  with  a  look  of  appeal  more  penetrating  still, 
"I  would  rather  die  than  not  do  it." 

The  old  rector,  always  leaning  to  the  good-natured  view 
of  things,  felt  chiefly  that  there  seemed  to  be  an  additional 
chance  for  the  poor  fellow  who  had  got  himself  into 
trouble.     He  disputed  no  farther,  but  went  to  the  attorney. 

Before  Harold  was  aware  of  Esther's  intention  she  was 
on  her  way  to  the  witness-box.  When  she  appeared  there, 
it  was  as  if  a  vibration,  quick  as  light,  had  gone  through 
the  Court  and  had  shaken  Felix  himself,  who  had  hitherto 
seemed  impassive.  A  sort  of  a  gleam  seemerd  to  shoot 
across  his  face,  and  anv  one  close  to  him  Avould  have  seen 
that  his  hand,  which  lay  on  the  edge  of  the  dock,  trembled. 

At  the  first  moment  Harold  was  startled  and  alarmed; 
the  next,  he  felt  delight  in  Esther's  beautiful  aspect,  and 
in  the  admiration  of  the  Coiirt.  There  was  no  blush  on 
her  face:  she  stood,  divested  of  all  personal  considerations 
whether  of  vanity  or  shyness.  Her  clear  voice  sounded  as 
it  might  have  done  if  she  had  been  making  a  confession  of 
faith.  She  began  and  went  on  without  query  or  interrup- 
tion.    Every  face  looked  grave  and  respectful. 

"I  am  Esther  Lyon,  the  daughter  of  Mr.  Lyon,  the 
Iiidependent  minister  at  Treby,  who  has  been  one  of  the 
witnesses  for  the  prisoner.  I  "know  Felix  Holt  well.  On 
the  day  of  the  election  at  Treby,  when  I  had  been  much 
alarmed  by  the  noises  that  reached  me  from  the  main 
street,  Felix  Holt  came  to  call  upon  me.     He  knew  that 


THE    ilADICAL.  413 

my  father  was  away,  and  he  thought  that  I  should  be 
alarmed  by  the  sounds  of  disturbance.  It  was  about  the 
middle  of  the  day,  and  he  came  to  tell  me  that  the  disturb- 
ance was  quieted,  and  that  the  streets  were  nearly  emptied. 
But  he  said  he  feared  that  the  men  would  collect  again 
after  drinking,  and  that  something  worse  might  happen 
later  in  the  clay.  And  he  was  in  much  sadness  at  this 
thought.  He  stayed  a  little  while,  and  then  he  left  me. 
He  was  very  melancholy.  His  mind  was  full  of  great  res- 
olutions that  came  from  his  kind  feeling  toward  others. 
It  was  the  last  thing  he  would  have  done  to  join  in  riot  or 
to  hurt  any  man,  if  he  could  have  helped  it.  His  nature 
is  very  noble;  he  is  tender-hearted;  he  could  never  have 
had  any  intention  that  was  not  brave  and  good." 

There  was  something  so  naive  and  beautiful  in  this 
action  of  Esther's,  that  it  conquered  every  low  or  petty 
suggestion  even  in  the  commonest  minds.  The  three  men 
in  that  assembly  who  knew  lier  best  —  even  her  father  and 
Felix  Holt  —  felt  a  thrill  of  surprise  mingling  with  their 
admiration.  This  bright,  delicate,  beautiful-shaped  thing 
that  seemed  most  like  a  toy  or  ornament  —  some  hand  had 
touched  the  chords,  and  there  came  forth  music  that 
brought  tears.  Half  a  year  before,  Esther's  dread  of  being 
ridiculous  spread  over  the  surface  of  her  life;  but  the  depth 
below  was  sleeping. 

Harold  Transome  was  ready  to  give  her  his  hand  and 
lead  her  back  to  her  place.  When  she  was  there,  Felix, 
for  the  first  time,  could  not  help  looking  toward  her,  and 
their  eyes  met  in  one  solemn  glance. 

Afterward  Esther  found  lierself  unable  to  listen  so  as 
to  form  any  judgment  on  what  she  heard.  The  acting 
out  of  that  strong  impulse  had  exhausted  every  energ3^ 
There  was  a  brief  pause,  filled  with  a  murmur,  a  buzz, 
and  much  coughing.  The  audience  generally  felt  as  if  dull 
weather  was  setting  in  again.  And  under  those  auspices 
the  counsel  for  the  prosecution  got  up  to  make  his 
reply.  Esther's  deed  had  its  effect  beyond  the  moment- 
ar}^  one,  but  the  effect  was  not  visible  in  the  rigid 
necessities  of  legal  procedure.  The  counsel's  duty  of 
restoring  all  unfavorable  facts  to  due  i)rominence  in  the 
minds  of  the  jurors,  had  its  effect  altogether  reinforced 
by  the  summing-up  of  the  judge.  Even  the  bare  discern- 
ment of  facts,  much  more  their  arrangement  with  a  view 
to  inferences,  must  carry  a  bias:  human  impartiality, 
whether  judicial  or  not,  can  hardly  escape  being  more  or 


414  FELIX    HOLT, 

less  loaded.  It  was  not  that  the  judge  had  severe  inten- 
tions; it  was  only  that  he  saw  with  severity.  The  conduct 
of  Felix  was  not  such  as  inclined  him  to  indulgent  con- 
sideration, and,  in  his  directions  to  the  jury,  that  mental 
attitude  necessarily  told  on  the  light  in  which  he  placed  the 
homicide.  Even  to  many  in  the  Court  who  were  not  con- 
strained by  judicial  duty,  it  seemed  that  though  this  high 
regard  felt  for  the  prisoner  by  his  friends,  and  especially 
by  a  generous- hearted  woman,  was  very  pretty,  such  con- 
duct as  his  was  not  the  less  dangerous  and  foolish,  and 
assaulting  and  killing  a  constable  was  not  the  less  an 
offense  to  be  regarded  without  leniency. 

Esther  seemed  now  so  tremulous,  and  looked  so  ill,  that 
Harold  begged  her  to  leave  the  Court  with  his  mother  and 
Mr.  Lingon.  He  would  come  and  tell  her  the  issue.  But 
she  said,  quietly,  that  she  would  rather  stay;  she  was  only 
a  little  overcome  by  the  exertion  of  speaking.  She  was 
inwardly  resolved  to  see  Felix  to  the  last  moment  before 
he  left  the  Court. 

Though  she  could  not  follow  the  address  of  the  counsel 
or  the  judge,  she  had  a  keen  ear  for  what  was  brief 
and  decisive.  She  heard  the  verdict,  "Guilty  of  man- 
slaughter." And  every  word  uttered  by  the  judge  in  pro- 
nouncing sentence  fell  upon  her  like  an  unforgctable 
sound  that  would  come  back  in  dreaming  and  in  waking. 
She  had  her  eyes  on  Felix,  and  at  the  words,  ''Imprison- 
ment for  four  years,"  she  saw  his  lip  tremble.  But  other- 
wise he  stood  firm  and  calm. 

Esther  gave  a  start  from  her  seat.  Her  heart  swelled 
with  a  horrible  sensation  of  pain;  but,  alarmed  lest  she 
should  lose  her  self-command,  slie  grasped  Mrs.  Tran- 
some's  hand,  getting  some  strength  from  that  luiman 
contact. 

Esther  saw  that  Felix  had  turned.  She  could  no  longer 
see  his  face.  "  Yes,"  she  said,  drawing  down  her  veil, 
"let  us  go" 


THE  RADICAL,  415 


CHAPTER    XLVII. 

The  devil  tempts  us  not  —  'tis  we  tempt  him. 
Beckoning  his  sldll  witli  opportunity. 

The  more  permanent  effect  of  Esther^s  action  in  the 
trial  was  visible  in  a  meeting  which  took  place  the  next 
day  in  the  principal  room  of  the  White  Hart  at  Loamford. 
To  the  magistrates  and  other  county  gentlemen  who  were 
drawn  togetlier  about  noon,  some  of  the  necessary  impulse 
might  have  been  lacking  but  for  that  stirring  of  heart  in 
certain  just-spirited  men  and  good  fathers  among  them, 
which  had  been  raised  to  a  high  pitch  of  emotion  by 
Esther's  maidenly  fervor.  Among  these  one  of  the  fore- 
most was  Sir  Maximus  Debarry,  who  had  come  to  the 
assizes  with  a  mind,  as  usual,  slightly  rebellious  under  an 
influence  wliich  he  never  ultimately  resisted  —  the  influ- 
ence of  his  son.  Philip  Debarry  himself  was  detained  in 
London,  but  in  his  correspondence  with  his  father  he  had 
urged  him,  as  well  as  his  uncle  Augustus,  to  keep  eyes 
and  interest  awake  on  the  subject  of  Felix  Holt,  whom, 
from  all  the  knowledge  of  the  case  he  had  been  able  to 
obtain,  he  was  inclined  to  believe  peculiarly  unfortunate 
rather  than  guilty.  Philip  had  said  he  was  the  more 
anxious  that  his  family  should  intervene  benevolently  in 
this  affair,  if  it  were  possible,  because  he  understood  that 
Mr.  Lyon  took  the  young  man's  case  particularly  to  heart, 
and  he  should  always  regard  himself  as  obliged  to  the 
old  preacher.  At  this  supcrfineness  of  consideration  Sir 
Maximus  had  vented  a  few  '"pshaws!"  and,  in  relation  to 
the  whole  affair,  had  grumbled  that  Phil  was  always 
setting  him  to  do  he  didn't  know  what  —  always  seeming 
to  turn  nothing  into  something  by  dint  of  words  which 
hadn't  so  much  substance  as  a  mote  behind  them.  Never- 
theless he  was  coerced;  and  in  reality  he  was  willing  to  do 
anything  fair  or  good-natured  which  had  a  handle  that  his 
understanding  could  lay  hold  of.  His  brother,  the  rector, 
desired  to  be  rigorously  just;  but  he  had  come  to  Loam- 
ford  with  a  severe  opinion  concerning  Felix,  thinking  that 
some  sharp  punishment  might  bo  a  wholesome  check  on 
the  career  of  a  young  man  disposed  to  rely  too  much  on 
his  own  crude  devices. 

Before  the  trial  commenced.  Sir  Maximus  had  naturally 
been  one  of  those  who  had  observed  Esther  with  curiosity. 


416  FELIX  HOLT, 

owing  to  the  report  of  her  inheritance,  and  her  probable 
marrtage  to  his  once  welcome  but  now  exasperating  neigh- 
bor, Harold  Transome;  and  he  had  made  the  emphatic 
comment — ''A  fine  girl!  something  thoroughbred  in  the 
look  of  her.  Too  good  for  a  Radical;  that's  all  I  have  to 
say."  But  during  the  trial  Sir  Maximus  was  wrought  into 
a  state  of  sympathetic  ardor  that  needed  no  fanning.  As 
soon  as  he  could  take  his  brother  by  the  buttonhole,  he 
said — 

"I  tell  you  what,  Gus!  we  must  exert  ourselves  to  get  a 
pardon  for  this  young  fellow.  Confound  it !  what's  the 
use  of  mewing  him  up  for  four  years?  Example?  ISTon- 
sense.  Will  there  be  a  man  knocked  down  the  less  for  it? 
That  girl  made  me  cry.  Depend  upon  it,  whether  she's  going 
to  marry  Transome  or  not,  she's  been  fond  of  Holt — in 
her  poverty,  j^ou  know.  She's  a  modest,  brave,  beautiful 
woman.  I'd  ride  a  steeplechase,  old  as  I  am,  to  gratify 
her  feelings.  Hang  it!  the  fellow's  a  good  fellow  if  she 
thinks  so.  And  he  threw  out  a  fine  sneer,  I  thought,  at 
the  Radical  candidate.  Depend  upon  it,  he's  a  good  fellow 
at  bottom." 

The  rector  had  not  exactly  the  same  kind  of  ardor,  nor 
was  he  open  to  precisely  that  process  of  proof  which 
appeared  to  have  convinced  Sir  Maximus;  but  he  had  been 
so  far  influenced  as  to  be  inclined  to  unite  in  an  effort  on 
the  side  of  mercy,  observing  also  that  he  "know  Phil 
would  be  on  that  side."  And  by  the  co-operation  of 
similar  movements  in  the  minds  of  other  men  whose 
names  were  of  Aveight,  a  meeting  had  been  determined  on 
to  consult  about  getting  up  a  memorial  to  the  Home  Sec- 
retary on  behalf  of  Felix  Holt.  His  case  had  never  had 
the  sort  of  significance  that  could  rouse  political  partisan- 
ship; and  such  interest  as  was  now  felt  in  him  was  still 
more  unmixed  with  that  inducement.  The  gentlemen  who 
gathered  in  the  room  at  the  White  Hart  were — not  as  the 
large  imagination  of  the  "North  Loamshire  Herald  "  sug- 
gested, "of  all  shades  of  political  opinion,"  but — of  as 
many  shades  as  were  to  be  found  among  the  gentlemen  of 
that  county. 

Harold  Transome  had  been  energetically  active  in  bring- 
ing about  this  meeting.  Over  and  above  the  stings  of 
conscience  and  a  determination  to  act  up  to  the  level  of 
all  recognized  honorableness,  he  had  the  powerful  motive 
of  desiring  to  do  what  would  satisfy  Esther.  His  gradually 
heightened  perception  that  she  had  a  strong  feeling  toward 


THE   RADICAL.  417 

Felix  Holt  had  not  made  him  uneasy.  Harold  had  a  con- 
viction that  might  have  seemed  like  fatuity  if  it  had  not 
been  that  he  saw  the  effect  he  produced  on  Esther  by  the 
light  of  his  opinions  about  women  in  general.  The  con- 
viction was,  that  Felix  Holt  could  not  be  his  rival  in  any 
formidable  sense.  Esther's  admiration  for  this  eccentric 
young  man  was,  he  thought,  a  moral  enthusiasm,  a 
romantic  fervor,  which  was^^one  among  those  many  attrac- 
tions quite  novel  in  his  own  experience;  her  distress  about 
the  trouble  of  one  who  had  been  a  familiar  object  in  her 
former  home,  was  no  more  than  naturally  followed  from  a 
tender  woman's  compassion.  The  place  young  Holt  had 
held  in  her  regard  had  necessarily  changed  its  relations 
now  that  her  lot  was  so  widely  changed.  It  is  undeniable, 
that  what  most  conduced  to  the  quieting  nature  of 
Harold's  conclusions  was  the  influence  on  his  imagination 
of  the  more  or  less  detailed  reasons  that  Felix  Holt  was  a 
watchmaker,  that  his  home  and  dress  were  of  a  certain 
quality,  that  his  person  and  manners — that,  in  short  (for 
Harold,  like  the  rest  of  us,  had  many  impressions  which 
saved  him  the  trouble  of  distinct  ideas),  Felix  Holt  was 
not  the  sort  of  a  man  a  woman  would  be  likely  to  be  in 
love  with  when  she  was  wooed  by  Harold  Transome. 

Thus,  he  was  sufficiently  at  rest  on  this  point  not  to  be 
exercising  any  painful  self-conquest  in  acting  as  the  zeal- 
ous advocate  of  Felix  Holt's  cause  with  all  persons  worth 
influencing;  but  it  was  by  no  direct  intercourse  between 
him  and  Sir  Maximus  that  they  found  themselves  in 
co-operation,  for  the  old  baronet  would  not  recognize  Har- 
old by  more  than  the  faintest  bow,  and  Harold  was  not  a 
man  to  expose  himself  to  a  rebuff.  Whatever  he  in  his 
inmost  soul  regarded  as  nothing  more  tlian  a  narrow  prej- 
udice, he  could  defy,  not  with  airs  of  importance,  but  with 
easy  indifference.  He  could  bear  most  things  good-humor- 
edly  where  he  felt  that  he  had  the  superiority.  The  object 
of  the  meeting  was  discussed,  and  the  memorial  agreed 
upon  without  any  clashing.  Mr.  Lingon  was  gone  home, 
but  it  was  expected  that  his  concurrence  and  signature 
would  be  given,  as  well  as  those  of  other  gentlemen  who 
were  absent.  The  business  gradually  reached  that  stage 
at  which  the  concentration  of  interest  ceases — when  the 
attention  of  all  but  a  few  who  ai'e  more  practically  con- 
cerned drops  off  and  disperses  itself  in  private  chat,  and 
there  is  no  longer  any  particular  reason  why  everybody 
stays  except  that  everybody  is  there.  The  room  was  rather 
27 


418  FELIX   HOLT, 

a  long  one,  and  invited  to  a  little  movement:  one  gentle- 
man drew  another  aside  to  speak  in  an  undertone  aboui 
Scotch  bullocks;  another  had  something  to  say  about  the 
North  Loamshire  hunt  to  a  friend  who  was  the  reverse  of 
good  looking,  but  who,  nevertheless,  while  listening, 
showed  his  strength  of  mind  by  giving  a  severe  attention 
also  to  his  full-length  reflection  in  the  handsome  tall  mirror 
that  filled  the  space  between  two  windows.  And  in  this 
way  the  groups  were  continually  shifting. 

feat  in  the  meantime  there  were  moving  toward  this 
room  at  the  White  Hart  the  footsteps  of  a  person  whose 
presence  had  not  been  invited,  and  who,  very  far  from 
being  drawn  thither  b^?  the  belief  that  he  would  be  wel- 
come, knew  well  that  his  entrance  would,  to  one  person  at 
least,  be  bitterly  disagreeable.  They  were  the  footsteps 
of  Mr.  Jermyn,  whose  appearance  that  morning  wa?  not 
less  comely  and  less  carefully  tended  than  usual,  but  who 
was  suffering  the  torment  of  a  compressed  rage,  which,  if 
not  impotent  to  inflict  pain  on  another,  was  impotent  to 
avert  evil  from  himself.  After  his  interview  with  Mrs. 
Transome  there  had  been  for  some  reasons  a  delay  of  posi- 
tive procedures  against  him  by  Harold,  of  which  delay 
Jermyn  had  twice  availed  himself:  first,  to  seek  an  inter- 
view with  Harold,  and  then  to  send  him  a  letter.  The 
interview  had  been  refused;  and  the  letter  had  been 
returned,  Avith  the  statement  that  no  communication  could 
take  place  except  through  Harold's  lawyers.  And  yester- 
day Johnson  had  brought  Jermyn  the  information  that  he 
would  quickly  hear  of  the  proceedings  in  Chancery  being 
reiumed:  the  watch  Johnson  kept  in  town  had  given  him 
s<5tBlire_  knowledge  on  this  head.  A  doomed  animal,  with 
every  issue  earthed  up  except  that  where  its  enemy  stands, 
must,  if  it  has  teeth  and  fierceness,  try  its  one  chance 
without  delay.  And  a  man  may  reach  a  point  in  his  life 
in  which  his  impulses  are  not  distinguished  from  those  of 
a  hunted  brute  by  any  capability  of  scruples.  Our  selfish- 
ness is  so  robust  and  many-clutching,  that,  ^vell  encour- 
aged, it  easily  devours  all  sustenance  away  from  our  poor 
little  scruples. 

Since  Harold  would  not  give  Jermyn  access  to  him,  that 
vigorous  attorney  was  resolved  to  take  it.  He  knew  all 
about  the  meeting  at  the  White  Hart,  and  he  was  going 
thither  with  the  determination  of  accosting  Harold.  He 
thought  he  knew  what  he  should  say,  and  the  tone  in 
wliich  he  should  say  it.     It  would  be  a  vague  intimation. 


THE    RADICAL.  419 

carrying  the  effect  of  a  threat,  which  should  compel  Har- 
old to  give  him  a  private  interview.  To  any  counter- 
consideration  that  presented  itself  in  his  mind — to  anything 
that  an  imagined  voice  might  say  —  the  imagined  answer 
arose,  '*'  That's  all  very  fine,  but  I'm  not  going  to  be  ruined 
if  I  can  help  it  —  least  of  all,  ruined  in  that  way."  Shall 
we  call  it  degeneration  or  gradual  development — this  effect 
of  thirty  additional  winters  on  the  soft-glancing,  versifying 
young  Jermyn? 

When  Jermyn  entered  the  room  at  the  White  Hart  he 
did  not  immediately  see  Harold.  The  door  was  at  the 
extremity  of  the  room,  and  the  view  was  obstructed  by 
groups  of  gentlemen  with  figures  broadened  by  overcoats. 
His  entrance  excited  no  j)eculiar  observation:  several  per- 
sons had  come  in  late.  Only  one  or  two,  who  knew  Jer- 
myn well,  were  not  too  much  preoccupied  to  have  a 
glancing  remembrance  of  what  had  been  chatted  about 
freely  the  day  before — Harold's  irritated  reply  about  his 
agent,  from  the  witness-box.  Keceiving  and  giving  a 
sb'ght  nod  here  and  there,  Jermyn  pushed  his  way,  look- 
ing round  keenly,  until  he  saw  Harold  standiiig  near  the 
other  end  of  the  room.  The  solicitor  who  had  acted  for 
Felix  was  just  then  speaking  to  him,  but  having  put  a 
paper  into  his  hand  turned  away;  and  Harold,  standing- 
isolated,  though  at  no  great  distance  from  others,  bent  his 
eyes  on  the  paper.  He  looked  brilliant  that  morning;  his 
blood  was  flowing  prosperously.  He  had  come  in  after  a 
ride,  and  was  additionally  brightened  by  rapid  talk  and 
the  excitement  of  seeking  to  impress  himself  favorably,  or 
at  least  powerfully,  on  the  minds  of  neighbors  nearer  or 
more  remote.  He  had  just  that  amount  of  flush  which 
indicates  that  life  is  more  enjo3'able  than  usual;  and  as  he 
stood  with  his  left  hand  caressing  his  whisker,  and  his 
right  holding  the  paper  and  his  riding-whip,  his  dark 
eyes  running  i-apidly  along  the  written  lines,  and  his  lips 
I'eposing  in  a  curve  of  good-humor  which  had  more  happi- 
ness in  it  than  a  smile,  all  beholders  might  have  seen  that 
his  mind  was  at  ease. 

Jermyn  walked  quickly  and  quietly  close  up  to  him. 
The  two  men  were  of  the  same  height,  and  before  Harold 
looked  round  Jermyn's  voice  was  saying,  close  to  his  ear, 
not  in  a  whisper,  but  in  a  hard,  incisive,  disrespectful  and 
yet  not  loud  tone — 

"Mr.  Transome,  I  must  speak  to  you  in  private." 

The  sound  iarred  through  Harold  with  a  sensation  all 


420  FELIX   HOLT, 

the  more  insufferable  because  of  the  revulsion  from  the 
satisfied,  almost  elated,  state  in  which  it  had  seized  him. 
He  started  and  looked  round  into  Jermyn's  eyes.  For 
an  instant;,  which  seemed  long,  there  was  no  sound  between 
them,  but  only  angry  hatred  gathering  in  the  two  faces. 
Harold  felt  himself  going  to  crush  this  insolence:  Jermyn 
felt  that  he  had  words  within  him  that  were  fangs  to 
clutch  this  obstinate  strength,  and  wring  forth  the  blood 
and  compel  submission.  And  Jermyn's  impulse  was  the 
more  urgent.  He  said,  in  a  tone  that  was  rather  lower, 
but  yet  harder  and  more  biting — 

''You  will  repent  else  —  for  your  mother's  sake." 

At  that  sound,  quick  as  a  leaping  flame,  Harold  had 
struck  Jermyn  across  the  face  with  his  whip.  The  brim 
of  the  hat  had  been  a  defense.  Jermyn,  a  powerful  man. 
had  instantly  thrust  out  his  hand  and  clutched  Harold 
hard  by  the  clothes  just  below  the  throat,  pushing  him 
slightly  §0  as  to  make  him  stagger. 

By  this  time  evreybody's  attention  had  been  called  to 
this  end  of  the  room,  but  both  Jermyn  and  Harold  were 
beyond  being  arrested  by  any  consciousness  of  spectators. 

"  Let  me  go,  you  scoundrel!"  said  Harold,  fiercely,  "or 
1 11  be  the  death  of  you." 

"Do,"  said  Jermyn,  in  a  grating  voice;  " I  am  your 
father." 

In  the  thrust  by  which  Harold  had  been  made  to  stagger 
backward  a  little,  the  two  men  had  got  very  near  the  long 
mirror.  They  were  both  white;  both  had  anger  and  hatred 
in  their  faces;  the  hands  of  both  were  upraised.  As  Harold 
heard  the  last  terrible  words  he  started  at  a  leaping  throb 
that  went  through  him,  and  in  the  start  turned  his  eyes 
away  from  Jermyn's  face.  He  turned  them  on  the  same 
face  in  the  glass  with  his  own  beside  it,  and  saw  the  hated 
fatherhood  reasserted. 

The  young  strong  man  reeled  with  a  sick  faintness.  But 
in  the  same  moment  Jermyn  released  his  hold,  and  Harold 
felt  himself  supported  by  the  arm.  It  was  Sir  Maximus 
Debarry  who  had  taken  hold  of  him. 

"Leave  the  room,  sir!"  the  baronet  said  to  Jermyn,  in 
a  voice  of  imperious  scorn.  "This  is  a  meeting  of  gen- 
tlemen." 

"Come,  Harold,"  he  said,  in  the  old  friendly  voice^ 
"  come  away  with  me." 


THE   RADICAL.  42] 


CHAPTER   XLVIII. 

'Tis  law  as  steadfast  as  the  throne  of  Zeus  — 
Our  days  are  heritors  of  days  gone  by. 

^scHYLus:  Agamemnon. 

A  LITTLE  after  five  o'clock  that  da}^,  Harold  arrived  at 
Trausome  Court.  As  he  was  winding  along  the  broad 
road  of  the  park,  some  parting  gleams  of  the  March  sun 
pierced  the  trees  here  and  there,  and  threw  on  the  grass 
a  long  shadow  of  himself  and  the  groom  riding,  and  illu- 
minated a  window  or  two  of  the  home  he  was  approaching. 
But  the  bitterness  in  his  mind  made  these  sunny  gleams 
almost  as  odious  as  an  artificial  smile.  He  wished  he  had 
never  come  back  to  this  pale  English  sunshine. 

In  the  course  of  his  eighteen  miles'  drive  he  had  made 
up  his  mind  wliat  he  would  do.  He  understood  now,  as 
he  had  never  understood  before,  the  neglected  solitariness 
of  his  mother's  life,  the  allusions  and  innuendoes  which 
had  come  out  during  the  election.  But  with  a  proud 
insurrection  against  the  hardship  of  an  ignominy  which 
was  not  of  his  own  making,  he  inwardly  said,  that  if  the 
circumstances  of  his  birth  were  such  as  to  warrant  any 
man  in  regarding  his  character  of  gentleman  with  ready 
suspicion,  that  character  should  be  the  more  strongly 
asserted  in  his  conduct,  No  one  should  be  able  to  allege 
with  any  show  of  proof  that  he  had  inherited  meanness. 

As  he  stepped  from  the  carriage  and  entered  the  hall, 
there  were  the  voice  and  the  trotting  feet  of  little  Harry 
as  usual,  and  the  rush  to  clasp  his  father's  leg  and  make 
"hif  joyful  puppy-like  noises.  Harold  just  touched  the 
bov's  head,  and  then  said  to  Dominic  in  a  weary  voice  — 

"Take  the  child  away.     Ask  where  my  mother  is.'' 

Mrs.  Transome,  Dominic  said,  was  up-stairs.  He  had 
seen  her  go  up  after  coming  in  from  her  walk  with  Miss 
Lyon,  and  she  had  not  come  down  again. 

Harold,  throwing  off  his  hat  and  greatcoat,  went  straight 
to  his  mother's  dressing-room.  There  was  still  a  hope  in 
his  mind.  He  might  be  suffering  simply  from  a  lie. 
There  is  much  misery  created  in  the  world  by  mere  mis- 
take or  slander,  and  he  might  have  been  stunned  by  a 
lie  suggested  by  such  slander.  He  rapped  at  his  mother'* 
door. 

Her  voice  said  immediately,  "  Come  in." 


422  FELIX   HOLT, 

Mrs.  Transome  was  resting  in  her  easy-chair,  as  she 
often  did  between  an  afternoon  walk  and  dinner.  She 
had  taken  off  her  walking-dress  and  wrapped  herself  in  a 
soft  dressing-gown.-  She  was  neither  more  nor  less  empty 
of  joy  than  usual.  But  when  she  saw  Harold,  a  dreadful 
certainty  took  possession  of  her.  It  was  as  if  a  long- 
expected  letter,  with  a  black  seal,  had  come  at  last, 

Harold's  face  told  her  what  to  fear  the  more  decis- 
ively, because  she  had  never  before  seen  it  express  a  man's 
deep  agitation.  Since  the  time  of  its  pouting  childhood 
and  careless  youth  she  had  seen  only  the  confident  strength 
and  good-humored  imperiousness  of  maturity,  Tlu>  last, 
five  hours  had  made  a  change  as  great  as  illness  make^. 
Harold  looked  as  if  he  had  been  wrestling,  and  had  had 
some  terrible  blow.  His  eyes  had  that  sunken  look  which, 
because  it  is  unusual,  seems  to  intensify  expression. 

He  looked  at  his  mother  as  he  entered,  and  her  ej^es 
followed  him  as  he  moved,  till  he  came  and  stood  in  front 
of  her,  she  looking  up  at  him,  with  white  lips, 

"  Mother,''  he  said,  speaking  with  a  distinct  slowness,  in 
strange  contrast  with  his  habitual  manner,  ''tell  me  the 
truth,  that  I  may  know  how  to  act." 

He  paused  a  moment,  and  then  said,  "  Wlio  is  my 
father?" 

She  was  mute:  her  lips  only  trembled.  Harold  stood 
silent  for  a  few  moments,  as  if  waiting.  Then  he  spoke 
again. 

"He  has  said  —  said  it  before  others  —  that  he  is  mv 
father," 

He  looked  still  at  his  mother.  She  seemed  as  if  age 
were  striking  her  with  a  sudden  wand — as  if  her  trembling 
face  were  getting  haggard  before  him.  She  was  mute. 
But  her  eyes  had  not  fallen;  they  looked  up  in  helpless 
misery  at  her  son. 

Her  son  turned  away  his  eyes  from  her,  and  left  her. 
In  that  moment  Harold  felt  hard:  he  could  show  no  pity. 
All  the  pride  of  his  nature  rebelled  against  his  sonship. 


THE   RADICAL.  4^ 


CHAPTEE  XLIX. 

Nay,  falter  uot^-'tis  an  assured  g-ood 
To  seek  the  noblest— 'tis  your  only  good 
Now  you  have  seen  it;  for  that  higher  vision 
Poisons  all  meaner  choice  forevermore. 

That  day  Esther  dined  with  old  Mr.  Transome  only. 
Harold  sent  word  that  he  was  engaged  and  had  already 
dined,  and  Mrs.  Transome  that  she  was  feeling  ill.  Esther 
was  mncli  disappointed  that  any  tidings  Harold  might  have 
brought  relating  to  Felix  were  deferred  in  this  way;  and, 
her  anxiety  making  her  fearfnl,  she  was  haunted  by  the 
thought  that  if  there  had  been  anything  cheering  to  tell, 
he  would  have  found  time  to  tell  it  without  delay.  Old 
Mr.  Transome  went  as  usual  to  his  sofa  in  the  library  to 
sleep  after  dinner,  and  Esther  had  to  seat  herself  in 
the  small  drawing-room,  in  a  well-lit  solitude  that  was 
unusually  dispiriting  to  her.  Pretty  as  this  room  was,  she 
did  not  like  it.  Mrs.  Transome's  full-length  portrait,  being 
the  only  picture  there,  urged  itself  too  strongly  on  her  atten- 
tion: the  youthful  brilliancy  it  represented  saddened  Estlier 
by  its  inevitable  association  with  what  she  daily  saw  had  come 
instead  of  it — a  joyless,  embittered  age.  The  sense  that 
Mrs.  Transome  was  unhappy,  affected  Esther  more  and 
more  deeply  as  the  growing  familiarity  which  relaxed  the 
efforts  of  the  hostess  revealed  more  and  more  the  thread- 
bare tissue  of  this  majestic  lady's  life.  Even  the  flowers 
and  the  pure  sunshine  and  the  sweet  waters  of  Paradise 
would  have  been  spoiled  for  a  young  heart,  if  the  bowered 
walks  had  been  haunted  by  an  Eve  gone  gray  with  bitter 
memories    of    an    Adam    who    had    complained,    "  The 

woman she  gave  me  of  the  tree,  and  I  did  eat."     And 

many  of  us  know  how,  even  in  our  childhood,  some  blank 
discontented  face  on  the  background  of  our  home  has 
marred  our  summer  mornings.  Why  was  it,  when  the 
birds  were  singing,  when  the  fields  were  a  garden,  and 
when  we  were  clasping  another  little  hand  just  larger  than 
our  own,  there  was  somebody  who  found  it  hard  to  smile? 
Esther  had  got  far  beyond  that  childhood  to  a  time  andT 
circumstances  when  this  daily  presence  of  elderly  dis- 
satisfaction amidst  such  outward  things  as  she  had  always 
thought  must  greatly  help  to  satisfy,  awaked,  not  merely 
vague  questioning  emotion,  but  strong  determining 
thought.     And  now,  in  these  hours  since  her  return  from 


424  FELIX   HOLT, 

Loamford,  her  mind  was  in  that  state  of  highly-wrought 
activity,  that  large  discourse,  in  which  we  seem  to  stand 
aloof  from  our  own  life— weighing  impartially  our  own 
temptations  and  the  weak  desires  that  most  habitually 
solicit  us.  "I  think  I  am  getting  that  power  Felix  wished 
me  to  have:  I  shall  soon  see  strong  visions,"  she  said  to 
herself,  with  a  melancholy  smile  flitting  across  her  face, 
as  she  put  out  her  wax  lights  that  she  might  get  rid  of 
the  oppressive  urgency  of  walls  and  upholstery  and  that 
portrait  smiling  with  deluded  brightness,  unwitting  of 
the  future. 

Just  then  Dominic  came  to  say  that  Mr.  Harold  sent 
his  compliments,  and  begged  that  she  would  grant  him  an 
interview  in  his  study.  He  disliked  the  small  drawing- 
room:  if  she  would  oblige  him  by  going  to  the  study  at 
once,  he  would  Join  her  very  soon.  Estlier  "v^ent,  in  some 
wonder  and  anxiety.  What  she  most  feared  or  hoped  in 
these  moments  related  to  Felix  Holt,  and  if  did  not  occur 
to  her  that  Harold  could  have  anything  special  to  say  to 
her  that  evening  on  other  subjects. 

Certainly  the  studv  was  pleasanter  than  the  small  draw- 
ing-room. A  quiet  light  shone  on  nothing  but  greenness 
and  dark  wood,  and  Dominic  had  placed  a  delightful  chair 
for  her  opposite  to  his  master's,  which  was  still  empty.  All 
the  little  objects  of  luxury  around  indicated  Harold's 
habitual  occupancy;  and  as  Esther  sat  opposite  all  these 
things  along  with  the  empty  chair  which  suggested  the 
coming  presence,  the  expectation  of  his  beseeching  homage 
brought  with  it  an  impatience  and  repugnance  which 
she  had  never  felt  before.  While  these  feelings  were 
strongly  upon  her,  the  door  opened  and  Harold  appeared. 

He  had  recovered  his  self-possession  since  his  interview 
with  his  mother:  he  had  dressed  and  was  perfectly  calm. 
He  had  been  occupied  with  resolute  thoughts,  determining 
to  do  what  he  knew  that  perfect  honor  demanded,  let  it 
cost  him  what  it  would.  It  is  true  he  had  a  tacit  hope 
behind,  that  it  might  not  cost  him  what  he  prized  most 
highly:  it  is  true  he  had  a  glimpse  even  of  reward;  but  it 
was  not  less  true  that  he  Avould  have  acted  as  he  did  with- 
out that  hope  or  glimpse.  It  was  the  most  serious  moment 
in  Harold  Transome's  life:  for  the  first  time  the  iron  had 
entered  into  his  soul,  and  he  felt  the  hard  pressure  of  our 
common  lot,  the  yoke  of  that  mighty  resistless  destiny  laid 
upon  us  by  the  acts  of  other  men  as  well  as  our  own. 

When   Esther  looked  at   him   she   relented,    and   felt 


THE   RADICAL.  425 

ashamed  of  her  gratuitous  impatience.  She  saw  that  his 
mind  was  in  some  way  burdened.  But  then  immediately 
sprang  the  dread  that  he  had  to  say  something  hopeless 
about  Felix. 

They  shook  hands  in  silence,  Esther  looking  at  him  with 
anxious  surprise.  He  released  her  hand,  but  it  did  not 
occur  to  her  to  sit  down,  and  tliey  both  continued  standing 
on  the  hearth. 

"  Don't  let  me  alarm  you,"  said  Harold,  seeing  that  her 
face  gathered  solemnity  from  his.  "  I  suppose  I  carry  the 
marks  of  a  past  agitation.  It  relates  entirely  to  troubles  of 
my  own — of  my  own  family.  No  one  beyond  is  involved 
in  them." 

Esther  wondered  still  more,  and  felt  still  more  relenting. 

''  But,"  said  Harold,  after  a  slight  pause,  and  in  a  voice 
that  was  weighted  with  new  feeling,  "  it  involves  a  diifer- 
ence  in  my  position  with  regard  to  you;  and  it  is  on  this 
point  that  I  wished  to  speak  to  you  at  once.  When  a  man 
sees  what  ought  to  be  done,  he  had  better  do  it  forthwith. 
He  can't  answer  for  himself  to-morrow." 

While  Esther  continued  to  look  at  him,  with  eyes  wid- 
ened by  anxious  expectation,  Harold  turned  a  little,  leaned 
on  the  mantelpiece,  and  ceased  to  look  at  her  as  he  spoke. 

"  My  feelings  drag  me  another  way.  I  need  not  tell  you 
that  your  regard  has  become  very  important  to  me — that  if 
our  mutual  position  had  been  different — that,  in  short,  you 
must  have  seen — if  it  had  not  seemed  to  be  a  matter  of 
worldly  interest,  I  should  have  told  you  plainly  already  that 
I  loved  you,  and  that  my  happiness  could  be  complete  only 
if  you  would  consent  to  marry  me." 

Esther  felt  her  heart  beginning  to  beat  painfully. 
Harold's  voice  and  words  moved  her  so  much  that  her 
own  task  seemed  more  diflficult  than  she  had  before  imag- 
ined. It  seemed  as  if  the  silence,  unbroken  by  anything 
but  the  clicking  of  the  fire,  had  been  long,  before  Harold 
turned  round  toward  her  again  and  said — 

"  But  to-day  I  have  heard  something  that  affects  ray  own 
position.  I  cannot  tell  you  what  it  is.  There  is  no  need. 
It  is  not  any  culpability  of  my  own.  But  I  have  not  just 
the  same  unsullied  name  and  fame  in  the  eyes  of  the  world 
around  us,  as  I  believed  that  I  had  when  I  allowed  myself 
to  entertain  that  wish  about  you.  You  are  very  young, 
entering  on  a  fresh  life  with  bright  prospects— you  are 
worthy  of  everything  that  is  best.  I  may  be_  too  vain  in 
thinking  it  was  at  all  necessary;  but  I  takethis  precaution 


426  FELIX   HOLT, 

against  myself.  I  shut  myself  out  from  tlie  chance  of 
trying,  after  to-day,  to  induce  you  to  accept  anything  which 
others  may  regard  as  specked  and  stained  by  any  obloquy, 
however  slight." 

Esther  was  keenly  toirched.  With  a  paradoxical  long- 
ing, such  as  often"  happens  to  us,  she  wished  at  that 
moment  that  she  could  ha^ve  loved  this  man  with  her 
whole  heart.  The  tears  came  into  her  eyes;  she  did 
not  speak,  but,  with  an  angel's  tenderness  in  her  face, 
she  laid  hex  hand  on  his  sleeve.  Harold  commanded 
himself  strongly  and  said  — 

"What  is  to  "be  done  now  is,  that  we  should  proceed  at 
once  to  the  necessary  legal  measures  for  putting  you  in 
possession  of  your  own,  and  arranging  mutual  claims. 
After  that  I  shall  probably  leave  England." 

Esther  was  oppressed  by  an  overpowering  difficulty.  Her 
sympathy  with  Harold  at  this  moment  was  so  strong,  that 
it  spread  itself  like  a  mist  over  all  previous  thought  and 
resolve.  It  was  impossible  now  to  wound  him  afresh. 
With  her  hand  still  resting  on  his  arm,  she  said,  timidly — 

"Should  you  be  urged  —  obliged  to  go  —  in  any  case?" 

"JsTot  in  every  case,  perhaps,"  Harold  said,  with  an 
evident  movement  of  the  blood  toward  his  face;  "at  least 
not  for  long,  not  for  always." 

Esther  was  conscious  of  the  gleam  in  his  eyes.  With 
terror  at  herself,  she  said,  in  difficult  haste,  "  I  can't 
speak.  I  can't  say  anything  to-night.  A  great  decision 
has  to  be  made:  I  must  wait  —  till  to-morrow." 

She  was  moving  her  hand  from  his  arm,  when  Harold 
took  it  reverentially  and  raised  it  to  his  lips.  She  turned 
toward  her  chair,  and  as  he  released  her  hand  she  sank 
down  on  the  seat  with  a  sense  that  she  needed  that  sup- 
port. She  did  not  want  to  go  away  from  Harold  yet.  All 
the  while  there  was  something  she  needed  to  know,  and 
vet  she  could  not  bring  herself  to  ask  it.  She  must  resign 
herself  to  depend  entirely  on  his  recollection  of  anything 
beyond  his  own  immediate  trial.  She  sat  helpless  under 
contending  sympathies,  while  Harold  stood  at  some  dis- 
tance from  her,  feeling  more  harassed  by  weariness  and 
uncertainty,  now  that  he  had  fulfilled  his  resolve,  and  was 
no  longer  under  the  excitement  of  actually  fulfilling  it. 

Esther's  last  words  had  forbidden  his  revival  of  the  sub- 
ject that  was  necessarily  supreme  Avith  him.  But  still  she 
sat  there,  and  his  mind,  busy  as  to  the  probabilities  of  her 
feeling,  glanced  over  all  she  had  done  and  said  in  the 


THE   RADICAL.  427 

later  days  of  their  intercourse.  It  was  this  retrospect  that 
led  him  to  say  at  last  — 

"You  will  be  glad  to  hear  that  we  shall  get  a  very 
powerfully  signed  memorial  to  the  Home  Secretary  about 
young  Holt.  I  think  your  speaking  for  him  helped  a  great 
deal.     You  made  all  the  men  wish  what  you  wished." 

This  was  what  Esther  had  been  yearning  to  hear  and 
dared  not  ask,  as  well  from  respect  for  Harold's  absorp- 
tion in  his  own  sorrow,  as  from  the  shrinking  that  belongs 
to  our  dearest  need.  The  intense  relief  of  hearing  what 
slie  longed  to  hear,  affected  her  whole  frame:  her  color, 
her  expression,  changed  as  if  she  had  been  suddenly  freed 
from  some  torturing  constraint.  But  we  interpret  signs  of 
emotion  as  we  interpret  other  signs — often  quite  errone- 
ously, unless  we  have  the  right  key  to  what  they  signify. 
Harold  did  not  gather  that  this  was  what  Esther  had 
waited  for,  or  that  the  change  in  her  indicated  more  than 
he  had  expected  her  to  feel  at  this  allusion  to  an  unusual 
act  which  she  had  done  under  a  strong  impulse. 

Besides  the  introduction  of  a  new  subject  after  ■  very 
momentous  words  have  passed,  and  are  still  dwelling  on 
the  mind,  is  necessarily  a  sort  of  concussion,  shaking  us 
into  a  new  adjustment  of  ourselves. 

It  seemed  natural  that  soon  afterward  Esther  put  out 
her  hand  and  said,   "Good-night."' 

Harold  went  to  his  bedroom  on  the  same  level  with  his 
study,  thinking  of  the  morning  with  an  uncertainty  that 
dipped  on  the  side  of  hope.  This  sweet  woman,  for  whom 
he  felt  a  passion  newer  than  any  he  had  expected  to  feel, 
might  possibly  make  some  hard  things  more  bearable  —  if 
she  loved  him.  If  not  —  well,  he  had  acted  so  that  he 
could  defy  any  one  to  say  he  was  not  a  gentleman. 

Esther  went  up-stairs  to  her  bedroom,  thiulcing  that  she 
should  not  sleep  that  night.  She  set  her  light  on  a  high 
stand,  and  did  not  touch  her  dress.  What  she  desired  to 
see  with  undisturbed  clearness  were  things  not  present: 
the  rest  she  needed  was  the  rest  of  a  final  choice.  It  was 
difficult.     On  each  side  there  was  renunciation. 

She  drew  up  her  blinds,  liking  to  see  the  gray  sky, 
where  there  were  some  veiled  glimmerings  of  moonlight, 
and  the  lines  of  the  forever  running  river,  and  the  bending 
movement  of  tlfe  black  trees.  She  wanted  the  largeness 
of  the  Avorld  to  help  her  thought.  This  young  creature, 
who  trod  lightly  backward  and  forward,  and  leaned 
against  the  window-frame,  and   shook   back   her  brown 


438  FELIX   HOLT. 

curls  as  she  looked  at  something  not  visible,  had  lived 
hardly  more  than  six  months  since  she  saw  Felix  Holt  for 
the  first  time.  But  life  is  measured  by  the  rapidity  of 
change,  the  succession  of  influences  that  modify  the  being  ; 
and  Esther  had  undergone  something  little  short  of  an 
inward  revolution.  The  revolutionary  struggle,  however, 
was  not  quite  at  an  end. 

There  was  something  which  she  now  felt  profoundly 
to  be  the  best  thing  that  life  could  give  her.  But  —  if 
it  was  to  be  had  at  all  —  it  was  not  to  be  had  without 
paying  a  heavy  price  for  it,  such  as  we  must  pay  for  all 
that  is  greatly  good.  A  supreme  love,  a  motive  that 
gives  a  sublime  rhythm  to  a  woman^s  life,  and  exalts 
habit  into  partnership  with  the  soul's  highest  needs, 
is  not  to  be  had  where  and  how  she  wills  :  to  know  that 
high  initiation,  she  must  often  tread  where  it  is  hard 
to  tread,  and  feel  the  chill  air,  and  watch  through  dark- 
ness. It  is  not  true  that  love  makes  all  things  easy, 
it  makes  us  choose  what  is  difficult.  Esther's  previous 
life  had  brought  her  into  close  acquaintance  with  many 
negations,  and  with  many  positive  ills  too,  not  of  the 
acutely  painful,  but  of  the  distasteful  sort.  What  if  she 
chose  the  hardship,  and  had  to  bear  it  alone,  with  no 
strength  to  lean  upon  —  no  other  better  self  to  make  a 
place  for  trust  and  joy  ?  Her  past  experience  saved  her 
from  illusions.  She  knew  the  dim  life  of  the  back  street, 
the  contact  with  sordid  vulgarity,  the  lack  of  refinement 
for  the  senses,  the  summons  to  a  daily  task ;  and  the  gain 
that  was  to  make  that  life  of  privation  something  on  which 
she  dreaded  to  turn  her  back,  as  if  it  were  heaven  — the 
presence  and  the  love  of  Felix  Holt  —  was  only  a  quivering 
hope,  not  a  certainty.  It  was  not  in  her  woman's  nature 
that  the  hope  should  not  spring  within  her  and  make  a 
strong  impulse.  She  knew  that  ho  loved  her :  had  he  not 
said  how  a  woman  might  help  a  man  if  she  were  worthy  ? 
and  if  she  proved  herself  worthy  ?  But  still  there  was 
the  dread  that  after  all  she  might  find  herself  on  the  stony 
road  alone,  and  faint  and  be  weary.  Even  with  the  fulfill- 
ment of  her  hope,  she  knew  that  she  pledged  herself  to 
meet  high  denmnds. 

.  And  on  the  other  side  there  was  a  lot  where  everything 
seemed  easy  —  but  for  the  fatal  absence  Of  those  feelings 
which,  now  she  had  once  known  them,  it  seemed  nothing 
less  than  a  fall  and  a  degradation  to  do  without.  With  a 
terrible  prescience  which  a  multitude  of  impressions  during 


THE   RADICAL.  429 

her  stay  at  Transome  Court  had  contributed  to  form,  she 
saw  herself  in  a  silken  bondage  that  arrested  all  motive, 
and  was  nothing  better  than  a  well-cushioned  despair.  To 
be  restless  amidst  ease,  to  be  languid  among  all  apj)liances 
for  pleasure,  was  a  possibility  that  seemed  to  haunt  the 
rooms  of  this  house,  and  wander  with  her  under  the  oaks 
and  elms  of  the  park.  And  Harold  Transome's  love, 
no  longer  a  hovering  fancy  with  which  she  played,  but 
become  a  serious  fact,  seemed  to  threaten  her  with  a 
stifling  oppression.  The  homage  of  a  man  may  be  delight- 
ful until  he  asks  straight  for  love,  by  which  a  woman  ren- 
ders homage.  Since  she  and  Felix  had  kissed  each  other 
in  the  prison,  she  felt  as  if  she  had  vowed  herself  away,  as 
if  memory  lay  on  her  lips  like  a  seal  of  possession.  Yet 
what  had  happened  that  very  evening  had  strengthened 
her  liking  for  Harold,  and  her  care  for  all  that  regarded 
him:  it  had  incpeased  her  repugnance  to  turning  him  out 
of  anything  he  had  expected  to  be  his,  or  to  snatching  any- 
thing from  him  on  the  ground  of  an  arbitrary  claim.  It 
had  even  made  her  dread,  as  a  coming  pain,  the  task  of 
saying  anything  to  him  that  was  not  a  promise  of  the 
utmost  comfort  under  this  newly-disclosed  trouble  of  his. 
It  was  already  near  midnight,  but  with  these  thoughts 
succeeding  and  returning  in  her  mind  like  scenes  through 
which  she  was  living,  Esther  had  a  more  intense  wakeful- 
ness than  any  she  had  known  by  day.  All  had  been  still- 
ness hitherto,  except  the  fitful  wind  outside.  But  her  ears 
now  caught  a  sound  within  —  slight,  but  sudden.  She 
moved  near  her  door,  and  heard  the  sweep  of  something 
on  the  matting  outside.  It  came  closer,  and  paused. 
Then  it  began  again,  and  seemed  to  sweep  away  from  her. 
Then  it  approached,  and  paused  as  it  had  done  before. 
Esther  listened,  wondering.  The  same  thing  happened 
again  and  again,  till  she  could  bear  it  no  longer.  She 
opened  the  door,  and  in  the  dim  light  of  the  corridor, 
where  the  glass  above  seemed  to  make  a  glimmering  sky, 
she  saw  Mrs.  Transome's  tall  figure  pacing  slowly,  with 
her  cheek  upon  her  hand. 


430  FELIX   HOLT, 


CHAPTER  L. 

The  great  question  in  life  is  the  suffering  we  cause:  and  the  utmost 
liiffenuity  of  metaphysics  camiot  justify  the  man  who  has  pierced  the  heart 
that  loved  him.— Benjamin  Constant. 

AVhen  Denner  had  gone  up  to  her  mistress's  room  to 
dress  her  for  dinner,  she  had  found  her  seated  just  as 
Harold  had  found  her,  only  with  eyelids  drooping  and 
trembling  over  slowly-rolling  tears — nay,  with  a  face  in 
which  every  sensitive  feature,  every  muscle,  seemed  to  be 
fjuivering  with  a  silent  endurance  of  some  agony. 

Denner  went  and  stood  by  the  chair  a  minute  without 
speaking,  only  laying  her  hand  gently  on  Mrs.  Transome's. 
At  last  she  said  beseechingly,  "  Pray,  epeak,  madam. 
What  has  hap})ened?" 

"The  worst,  Denner — the  worst." 

"You  are  ill.  Let  me  undress  you,  and  put  you  to 
bed." 

"  'No,  I  am  not  ill.  I  am  not  going  to  die  !  I  shall  live — 
I  shall  live!" 

"What  may  I  do?" 

"Go  and  say  I  shall  not  dine.  Then  you  may  come 
back,  if  you  will." 

The  patient  waiting- woman  came  back  and  sat  by  her 
mistress  in  motionless  silence.  Mrs.  Transome  would  not 
let  her  dress  be  touched,  and  waved  away  all  proffers  with 
a  slight  movement  of  her  hand.  Denner  dared  not  even 
light  a  candle  without  beiiig  told.  At  last,  when  the 
evening  was  far  gone,  Mrs.  Transome  said: 

"  Go  down,  Denner,  and  find  out  where  Harold  is,  and 
come  back  and  tell  me." 

"Shall  I  ask  him  to  come  to  you,  madam?" 

"Xo;  don't  dare  to  do  it,  if  vou  love  me.     Come  back." 

Denner  brought  word  that  Mr.  Harold  was  in  his  study, 
and  tliat  Miss  Lyon  was  with  him.  He  had  not  dined,  but 
had  sent  later  to  ask  Miss  Lyon  to  go  into  his  study. 

"Light  the  candles  and  leave  me." 

"  Mayn't  I  come  again?" 

"No.     It  may  be  that  my  son  will  come  to  me.'* 

"  Mayn't  I  sleep  on  the  little  bed  in  your  bedroom?'' 

"No,  good  Denner;  I  am  not  ill.     You  can't  help  me." 

"That's  the  hardest  word  of  all.  madam." 


THE   RADICAL.  431 

''  The  time  will  come — but  not  now.     Kiss  me.     l^ow 


go." 


The  small  quiet  old  woman  obeyed,  as  she  had  always 
done.  She  shrank  from  seeming  to  claim  an  equal's  share 
in  her  mistress's  sorrow. 

For  two  hours  Mrs.  Transome's  mind  hung  on  what 
was  hardly  a  hoj^e — hardly  more  than  the  listening  for  a 
bare  possibility.  She  began  to  create  the  sounds  that  her 
anguish  craved  to  hear — began  to  imagine  a  footfall,  and  a 
hand  upon  the  door.  Then,  checked  by  continual  disap- 
pointment, she  tried  to  rouse  a  truer  consciousness  by 
rising  from  her  seat  and  walking  to  her  window,  where 
she  saw  streaks  of  light  moving  and  disappearing  on 
the  grass,  and  heard  the  sound  of  bolts  and  closing  door^. 
Slie  hurried  away  and  threw  herself  into  her  seat  agaiu, 
and  buried  her  head  in  the  deafening  down  of  the  cush- 
ions.    There  was  no  sound  of  comfort  for  her. 

Then  her  heart  cried  out  within  her  against  the  cruelty 
of  this  son.  When  he  turned  from  her  in  the  first 
moment,  he  had  not  had  time  to  feel  anything  but  the 
blow  that  had  fallen  on  himself.  But  afterward — Avas  it 
possible  that  he  should  not  be  touched  with  a  son's  pity — 
was  it  possible  that  he  should  not  have  been  visited  by- 
some  thought  of  the  long  years  through  which  she  had 
suffered?  The  memory  of  those  years  came  back  to  her 
now  with  a  protest  against  the  cruelty  that  had  all  fallen 
on  her.  She  started  up  with  a  new  restlessness  from  this 
spirit  of  resistance.  She  was  not  isenitent.  She  had 
l)orne  too  hard  a  punishment.  Always  the  edge  of  calam- 
ity had  fallen  on  her.  Who  had  felt  for  her?  She  was 
desolate.  God  had  no  pity,  else  her  son  would  not  have 
been  so  hard.  What  dreary  future  was  there  after  this 
dreary  past?  She,  too,  looked  out  into  the  dim  night; 
but  tlie  black  boundary  of  trees  and  the  long  line  of  the 
river  seemed  only  part  of  the  loneliness  and  monotony  of 
her  life. 

Suddenly  she  saw  a  light  on  the  stone  balustrades  of  the 
balcony  that  projected  in  front  of  Esther's  window,  and 
the  flash  of  a  moving  candle  falling  on  a  slirub  below. 
Esther  Avas  still  awake  and  up.  What  had  Harold  told 
her — what  had  passed  between  them?  Harold  was  fond  of 
this  young  creature,  who  had  been  always  sweet  and  rever- 
ential to  her.  There  was  mercy  in  her  young  heart;  she 
might  be  a  daughter  who  had  no  impulse  to  punish  and  to 
strike  her  whom  fate  had  stricken.    On  the  dim  loneliness 


432  FELIX   HOLT, 

before  her  she  seemed  to  see  Esther's  gentle  look;  it  was 
possible  still  that  the  misery  of  this  night  might  be  broken 
by  some  comfort.  The  proud  woman  yearned  for  the 
caressing  pity  that  must  dwell  in  that  young  bosom.  She 
opened  her  door  gently,  but  when  she  had  reached  Esther's 
she  hesitated.  She  had  never  yet  in  her  life  asked  for 
compassion  —  had  never  thrown  herself  in  faith  on  an 
unprolfered  love.  And  she  might  have  gone  on  pacing  the 
corridor  like  an  uneasy  spirit  without  a  goal,  if  Esther's 
thought,  leaping  toward  her,  had  not  saved  her  from  the 
need  to  ask  admission. 

Mrs.  Transonic  was  walking  toward  the  door  when  it 
opened.  As  Esther  saw  that  image  of  restless  misery,  it 
blent  itself  by  a  rapid  flash  with  all  that  Harold  had  said 
in  the  evening.  She  divined  that  the  son's  new  trouble 
must  be  one  with  the  mother's  long  sadness.  But  there 
was  no  waiting.  In  an  instant  Mrs.  Transome  felt  Esther's 
arm  round  her  neck,  and  a  voice  saying  softly — 

"  Oh,  why  didn't  you  call  me  before?" 

They  turned  hand  and  hand  into  the  room,  and  sat 
down  on  a  sofa  at  the  foot  of  the  bed.  The  disordered  gray 
hair — the  haggard  face — the  reddened  eyelids  under  which 
the  tears  seemed  to  be  coming  again  with  pain,  pierced 
Esther  to  the  heart.  A  passionate  desire  to  soothe  this 
suffering  Avoman  came  over  her.  She  clung  round  her 
again,  and  kissed  her  poor  quivering  lips  and  eyelids,  and 
laid  her  young  cheek  against  the  pale  and  haggard  one. 
Words  could  not  be  quick  or  strong  enough  to  utter  her 
yearning.  As  Mrs.  Transome  felt  that  soft  clinging,  she 
said  — 

"  God  has  some  pity  on  me." 

"Eest  on  my  bed,"  said  Esther.  "You  are  so  tired.  I 
will  cover  you  up  warmly,  and  then  you  will  sleep." 

"No  —  tell  me,  dear — tell  me  what  Harold  said." 

"  That  he  has  had  some  new  trouble." 

"He  said  nothing  hard  about  me?" 

"No  —  nothing.     He  did  not  mention  you." 

"I  have  been  an  unhappy  woman,  dear." 

"  I  feared  it,"  said  Esther,  pressing  her  gently. 

"Men  are  selfish.  They  are  selfish  and  cruel.  What 
they  care  for  is  their  own  pleasure  and  their  own  pride." 

''  Not  all,"  said  Esther,  on  whom  these  words  fell  with  a 
painful  jar. 

"All  I  have  ever  loved,"  said  Mrs.  Transome.  She 
paused  a  moment  or  two,  and  then  said,  "  For  more  than 


THE   RADICAL.  433 

twenty  years  I  have  not  had  an  hour's  happiness.  Harold 
knows  it,  and  yet  he  is  hard  to  me." 

*'He  will  not  be.  To-morrow  he  will  not  be.  I  am  sure 
he  will  be  good,"  said  Esther,  pleadingly.  "Eemember — 
he  said  to  me  his  trouble  was  new — he  has  not  had  time." 

"It  is  too  hard  to  bear,  dear,"  Mrs.  Transome  said,  a 
new  sob  rising  as  she  clung  fast  to  Esther  in  return.  "I 
am  old,  and  expect  so  little  now — a  very  little  thing  would 
seem  great.     Why  should  I  be  punished  any  more?" 

Esther  found  it  difficult  to  speak.  The  dimly-suggested 
tragedy  of  this  woman's  life,  the  dreary  waste  of  years 
empty  of  sweet  trust  and  affection,  afflicted  her  even  to 
horror.  It  seemed  to  have  come  as  a  last  vision  to  urge 
her  toward  the  life  where  the  draughts  of  joy  sprang  from 
the  unchanging  fountains  of  reverence  and  devout  love. 

But  all  the  more  she  longed  to  still  the  pain  of  this  heart 
that  beat  against  hers. 

''•  Do  let  me  go  to  your  own  room  with  you,  and  let  me 
undress  you,  and  let  me  tend  upon  you,"  she  said  with  a 
woman's  gentle  instinct.  ''It  will  be  a  very  great  thing 
tome.     I  shall  seem  to  have  a  mother  again.     Do  let  me." 

Mrs.  Transome  yielded  at  last,  and  let  Esther  soothe  her 
with  a  daughter's  tendance.  She  was  undressed  and  went 
to  bed;  and  at  last  dozed  fitfully,  with  frequent  starts. 
But  Esther  watched  by  her  till  the  chills  of  morning  came, 
and  then  she  only  \\rapped  more  warmth  around  her,  and 
slept  fast  in  the  chair  till  Denner's  movement  in  the  room 
roused  her.  She  started  out  of  a  dream  in  which  she  was 
telling  Felix  what  had  happened  to  her  that  night. 

Mrs.  Transome  was  now  in  the  sounder  morning  sleep 
which  sometimes  comes  after  a  long  night  of  misery. 
Esther  beckoned  Denner  into  the  dressing-room,  and  said: 

"It  is  late,  Mrs.  Hickes.  Do  you  think  Mr.  Harold  is 
out  of  his  room?" 

"Yes,  a  long  while;  he  w^as  out  earlier  than  usual." 

"Will  you  ask  him  to  come  up  here?  Say  I  begged 
you." 

When  Harold  entered,  Esther  was  leaning  against  the 
back  of  the  empty  chair  where  yesterday  he  had  seen  his 
mother  sitting.  He  was  in  a  state  of  wonder  and  suspense, 
and  when  Esther  approached  him  and  gave  him  her  hand, 
he  said,  in  a  startled  way — 

"Good  God!  how  ill  you  look!  Have  you  been  sitting 
up  with  my  mother?" 

"Yes.  She  is  asleep  now,"  said  Esther.  They  had 
28 


434  FELIX    HOLT, 

merely  pressed  hands  by  way  of  greetiug,  and  now  stood 
apart  looking  at  each  other  solemnly. 

*'Has  she  told  you  anything?"  said  Harold. 

"'No — only  that  she  is  wretched.  Oh,  I  think  I  would 
bear  a  great  deal  of  unhappiness  to  save  her  from  having 
any  more." 

A  painful  thrill  passed  through  Harold,  and  showed 
itself  in  his  face  with  that  pale  rapid  flash  which  can  never 
be  painted.  Esther  pressed  her  hands  together,  and  said, 
timidly,  though  it  was  from  an  urgent  prompting — 

"There  is  nothing  in  all  this  place — nothing  since  ever 
I  came  here— I  could  care  for  so  much  as  that  you  should 
sit  down  by  her  now,  and  that  she  should  see  you  when 
she  wakes." 

Then  with  delicate  instinct,  she  added,  just  laying  her 
hand  on  his  sleeve,  "I  know  you  would  have  come.  I 
know  you  meant  it.  But  she  is  asleep  now.  Go  gently 
before  she  wakes." 

Harold  Just  laid  his  right  hand  for  an  instant  on  the 
back  of  Esther's  as  it  rested  on  his  sleeve,  and  then 
stepped  softly  to  his  mother's  bedside. 

An  hour  afterward,  when  Harold  had  laid  his  mother's 
pillow  afresh,  and  sat  down  again  by  her,  she  said  — 

"  If  that  dear  thing  will  marry  you,  Harold,  it  will  make 
up  to  you  for  a  great  deal." 

But  before  the  day  closed  Harold  knew  that  this  was  not 
to  be.  That  young  presence,  which  had  flitted  like  a  white 
new-winged  d'ove  over  all  the  saddening  relics  and  new 
finery  of  Transome  Court,  could  not  find  its  iiome  there. 
Harold  heard  from  Esther's  lips  that  she  loved  some  one 
else,  and  that  she  resigned  all  claim  to  the  Transome 
estates. 

She  wished  to  go  back  to  her  father. 


THE   RADICAL.  435 


CHAPTER  LI. 

The  maiden  said,  I  wis  the  londe 

Is  very  fair  to  see. 
But  my  true-love  that  is  in  bonde 

Is  fairer  still  to  me. 

One  April  day,  when  the  sun  shone  on  the  lingering 
rain-drops,  Lyddy  was  gone  out,  and  Esther  chose  to  sit  in 
the  kitchen,  in  the  wicker-chair  against  the  white  table, 
between  the  fire  and  the  window.  The  kettle  was  singing, 
and  the  clock  was  ticking  steadilv  toward  four  o'clock. 

Slie  was  not  reading,  but  stitching;  and  as  her  fingers 
moved  nimbly,  something  played  about  her  jjarted  lips 
like  a  ray.  Suddenly  she  laid  down  her  work,  pressed  her 
liands  togetlier  on  her  knees,  and  bent  forward  a  little. 
The  next  moment  there  came  a  loud  rap  at  the  door.  She 
started  up  and  opened  it,  but  kept  herself  hidden  behind  it. 

"Mr.  Lyon  at  home?"  said  Felix,  in  his  firm  tones. 

"No,  sir,"  said  Esther  from  behind  her  screen;  "but 
Miss  Lyon  is,  if  you'll  please  to  walk  in." 

"Esther!"  exclaimed  Felix,  amazed. 

They  held  each  other  by  both  hands,  and  looked  into 
each  other's  faces  with  delight. 

"You  arc  out  of  prison?" 

"■'Yes,  till  I  do  something  bad  again.  But  you? — how 
is  it  all?" 

"Oh,  it  is,"  said  Esther,  smiling  brightly  as  she  moved 
toward  the  wicker  chair,  and  seated  herself  again,  "that 
everything  is  as  usual:  my  father  is  gone  to  see  the  sick; 
Lyddy  is  gone  in  deep  despondency  to  buy  the  grocery;  and 
I  am  sitting  here,  with  some  vanity  in  me,  needing  to  be 
scolded." 

Felix  had  .seated  himself  on  a  cliair  that  happened  to  be 
near  her,  at  the  corner  of  the  table.  He  looked  at  her 
still  with  questioning  eyes — he  grave,  she  mischievously 
smiling. 

"  Are  you  come  back  to  live  here  then?" 

"Yes." 

"•You  are  not  going  to  be  married  to  Harold  Transome, 
or  to  be  rich  ?  " 

"Xo."  Something  made  Esther  take  up  her  work 
again,  and  begin  to  stitch.  The  smiles  were  dying  into  a 
tremor. 


436  FELIX    HOLT, 

''Why?"  said  Felix,  in  rather  a  low  tone,  leaning  his 
elbow  oil  the  table,  and  resting  his  head  on  his  hand  while 
he  looked  at  her. 

"I  did  not  wish  to  marry  him,  or  to  be  rich." 

"You  have  given  it  all  up?"  said  Felix,  leaning  forward 
a  little,  and  speaking  in  a  still  lower  tone. 

Esther  did  not  speak.  They  heard  the  kettle  singing 
and  the  clock  loudly  ticking.  There  was  no  knowing  how 
it  was:  Esther's  work  fell,  their  eyes  met;  and  the  next 
instant  their  arms  were  round  each  other's  necks,  and  once 
more  they  kissed  each  other. 

When  their  hands  fell  again,  their  eyes  were  bright  with 
tears.     Felix  laid  his  hand  on  her  shoulder. 

"  Could  you  share  the  life  of  a  poor  man,  then,  Esther?" 

'^If  I  thought  well  enough  of  him,"  she  said,  the  smile 
coming  again,  with  the  pretty  saucy  movement  of  her 
head. 

"Have  you  considered  well  what  it  would  be? — that  it 
would  be  a  very  bare  and  simple  life?" 

"Yes — without  atta  of  roses."  • 

Felix  suddenly  removed  his  hand  from  her  shoulder,  rose 
from  his  chair,  and  walked  a  step  or  two;  then  he  turned 
round  and  said,  with  deep  gravity — 

"And  the  people  I  shall  live  among,  Esther?  They 
have  not  just  the  same  follies  and  vices  as  the  rich,  but 
they  have  their  own  forms  of  folly  and  vice;  and  they 
have  not  what  are  called  the  refinements  of  the  rich  to 
make  their  faults  more  bearable.  I  don't  say  more  bear- 
able to  me — I'm  not  fond  of  those  refinements;  but  you 
are." 

Felix  paused  an  instant,  and  then  added — 

"It  is  very  serious,  Esther." 

"  I  know  it  is  serious,"  said  Esther,  looking  up  at  him. 
"Since  I  have  been  at  Transome  Court  I  have  seen  many 
things  very  seriously.  If  I  had  not,  I  should  not  have  left 
what  I  did  leave.     I  made  a  deliberate  choice." 

Felix  stood  a  moment  or  two,  dwelling  on  her  with  a 
face  where  the  gravity  gathered  tenderness. 

"And  these  curls?"  he  said,  with  a  sort  of  relenting, 
seating  himself  again,  and  putting  his  hand  on  them. 

"They  cost  nothing — they  are  natural." 

"  Yoia  are  such  a  delicate  creature." 

"  I  am  very  healthy.  Poor  women,  I  think,  are  healthier 
than  the  rich.  Besides,"  Esther  went  on,  with  a  mis- 
ohievous  meaning,  "I  think  of  having  some  wealth." 


THE   RADICAL.  437 

"How?"  said  Felix,  with  an  anxious  start.  ''What  do 
you  mean?" 

'  "I  think  even  of  two  pounds  a  week:  one  needn't  live 
wp  to  the  splendor  of  all  that,  you  know;  we  might  live  as 
simply  as  you  liked:  there  would  be  money  to  spare,  and 
you  could  do  wonders,  and  be  obliged  to  work  too,  only 
not  if  sickness  came.  And  then  I  think  of  a  little  income 
for  your  mother,  enough  for  her  to  live  as  she  has  been 
used  to  live;  and  a  little  income  for  my  father,  to  save 
him  from  being  dependent  when  he  is  no  longer  able  to 
preach." 

Esther  said  all  this  in  a  playful  tone,  but  she  ended, 
with  a  grave  look  of  appealing  submission 

"  I  mean — if  you  approve.  I  wish  to  do  what  you  think 
it  will  be  right  to  do." 

Felix  put  his  hand  on  her  shoulder  again  and  reflected  a 
little  while^  looking  on  the  hearth:  then  he  said,  lifting 
up  his  ey«s,  with  a  smile  at  her 

"  Why,  I  shall  be  able  to  set  up  a  great  library,  and 
lend  the  books  to  be  dog's-eared  and  marked  with  bread- 
crumbs." 

Esther  said,  laughing,  "  You  think  you  are  to  do  every- 
thing. You  don't  know  how  clever  I  am.  I  mean  to  go 
on  teaching  a  great  many  things." 

"Teaching  me?" 

"Oh,  yes,"  she  said,  with  a  little  toss;  "I  shall  improve 
your  French  accent." 

"  You  won't  want  me  to  wear  a  stock,"  said  Felix,  with 
a  defiant  shake  of  the  head. 

"  No;  and  you  will  not  attribute  stupid  thoughts  to  me 
before  I've  uttered  them." 

They  laughed  merrily,  each  holding  the  other's  arms, 
like  girl  and  boy.  There  was  the  ineffable  sense  of  youth 
in  common. 

Tlien  Felix  leaned  forward,  that  their  lips  might  meet 
again,  and  after  that  his  eyes  roved  tenderly  over  her  face 
and  curls. 

"I'm  a  rough,  severe  felloAv,  Esther.  Shall  you  never 
repent? — never  be  inwardly  reproaching  me  that  I  was  not 
a  man  who  could  have  shared  your  wealth?  Are  you  quite 
sure?" 

"Quite  sure!"  said  Esther,  shaking  her  head;  "for 
then  I  should  have  honored  you  less.  I  am  weak — my 
husband  must  be  greater  and  nobler  than  I  am." 

"  Oh,  I  tell  you  what,   though  I "  said  Felix,  starting 


438  FELIX   HOLT, 

up,  thrusting  his  hands  into  his  pockets,  and  creasing  his 
brow  playfully,  ''if  you  take  me  in  that  way  I  shall  be 
forced  to  be  a  much  better  fellow  than  I  ever  thought  of 
being." 


(( 


I  call  that  retribution,*'  said  Esther,  with  a  laugh  as 
sweet  as  the  morning  thrush. 


EPILOGUE. 


Our  finest  hope  is  finest  memory ; 

And  those  who  love  in  a^e  think  youth  is  happy, 

Because  it  has  a  life  to  fill  with  love. 

Thr  very  next  May,  Felix  and  Esther  were  married. 
Every  one  in  those  days  was  married  at  the  parish  church; 
but  Mr.  Lyon  was  not  satisfied  without  an  additional  pri- 
vate solemnity,  "wherein  there  was  no  bondage  to  ques- 
tionable forms,  so  that  he  might  have  a  more  enlarged 
utterance  of  joy  and  supplication." 

It  was  a  very  simple  Avedding;  but  no  wedding,  even 
the  gayest,  ever  raised  so  much  interest  and  debate  in 
Treby  Magna.  Even  very  great  people,  like  Sir  Maximus 
and  his  family,  went  to  the  church  to  look  at  this  bride, 
who  had  renounced  wealth,  and  chosen  to  be  the  wife  of  a 
man  who  said  he  would  alwa5^s  be  poor. 

Some  few  shook  their  heads;  could  not  quite  believe  it; 
and  thought  there  was  "more  behind."  But  the  majority 
of  honest  Trebians  were  affected  somewhat  in  the  same 
way  as  happy-looking  Mr.  Wace  was,  who  observed  to  his 
wife,  as  they  wjdked  from  under  the  churchyard  chestnuts, 
"  It's  wonderful  how  things  go  through  you —  you  don't 
know  how,  I  feel  somehow  as  if  I  believed  more  in  every- 
thing that's  good." 

Mrs.  Holt,  that  day,  said  she  felt  herself  to  be  receiving 
"some  reward,"  implying  that  justice  certainly  had  much 
more  in  reserve.  Little  Job  Tudge  had  an  entirely  new 
suit,  of  which  he  fingered  every  separate  brass  button  in 
a  way  that  threatened  an  arithmetical  mania;  and  Mrs. 
Holt  had  out  her  best  tea-trays  and  put  down  her  carpet 
again,  with  the  satisfaction  of  thinking  that  there  would 
no  more  be  boys  coming  in  all  weathers  with  dirty  shoes. 

For  Felix  and  Esther  did  not  take  up  their  abode  in 
Treby  Magna;  and  after  a  while  Mr.  I^yon  left  the  town 


THE    RADICAL.  439 

too,  and  joined  them  where  they  dwelt.  On  his  resigna- 
tion the  church  in  Malthouse  Yard  chose  a  successor  to 
him  whose  doctrine  was  rather  higher. 

There  were  other  departures  from  Treby.  Mr.  Jermyn's 
establishment  was  broken  up,  and  he  was  understood  to 
have  gone  to  reside  at  a  great  distance :  some  said 
"abroad,"  that  large  home  of  ruined  reputations.  Mr. 
Jolmson  continued  blonde  and  sufficiently  prosperous  till 
lie  got  gray  and  rather  more  prosperous.  Some  jiersons, 
who  did  not  think  highly  of  him,  held  that  his  prosperity 
was  a  fact  to  be  kept  in  the  background,  as  being  danger- 
ous to  the  morals  of  the  young;  Judging  that  it  was  not 
altogether  creditable  to  the  Divine  Providence  that  any- 
thing but  virtue  should  be  rewarded  by  a  front  and  back 
drawing-room  in  Bedford  Row. 

As  for  Mr.  Christian,  he  had  no  more  profitable  secrets 
at  his  disposal.  But  he  got  his  thousand  pounds  from 
Harold  Transonic. 

Tlie  Transome  family  were  absent  for  some  time  from 
Transome  Court.  The  place  was  kept  up  and  shown  to 
visitors,  but  not  by  Denner,  who  was  away  with  her 
mistress.  After  a  while  the  family  came  back,  and  Mrs. 
Transome  died  there.  Sir  Maximus  was  at  her  funeral, 
and  throughout  that  neighborhood  there  was  silence  about 
tlie  past. 

Uncle  Lingon  continued  to  watch  over  the  shooting  on 
the  Manor  and  the  covers  until  that  event  occurred  which 
he  liad  predicted  as  a  part  of  Church  reform  sure  to  come. 
Little  Treby  had  a  new  rector,  but  others  were  sorry 
besides  the  old  pointers. 

As  to  all  that  wide  parish  of  Treby  Magna,  it  has  since 
prospered  as  the  rest  of  England  had  prospered.  Doubt- 
less there  is  more  enlightenment  now.  Whether  the 
farmers  are  all  public-spirited,  the  shoiDkeepers  nobly  inde- 
pendent, the  Sproxton  men  entirely  sober  and  judicious, 
tlie  Dissenters  quite  without  narrowness  or  asperity  in 
religion  and  politics,  and  the  publicans  all  fit,  like  Gains, 
to  be  the  friends  of  an  apostle  —  these  things  I  have  not 
heard,  not  having  correspondence  in  those  parts.  Whethe-r 
any  presumption  may  be  drawn  from  the  fact  that  North 
Loamshire  does  not  yet  return  a  Radical  candidate,  I  leave 
to  the  all-wise  —  I  mean  the  newspapers. 

As  to  the  town  in  which  Felix  Holt  now  resides,  I  will 
keep  that  a  secret,  lest  he  should  be  troubled  by  any  visitor 
having  the  insufferable  motive  of  curiosity. 


440  FELIX   HOLT, 

i 

I  -will  only  say  that  Esther  has  never  repented.  Felix, 
however,  grumbles  a  little  that  she  has  made  his  life  too 
easy,  and  that,  if  it  were  not  for  much  walking,  he  should 
be  a  sleek  dog. 

There  is  a  young  Felix,   who  has  a  great  deal  more        j 
Bcience  than  his  father,  but  not  much  more  money,  I 


THT!  END. 


THE  LEGEISTD  OF  JUBAL 


AND 


OTHEE  POEMS,  OLD  AISTD  E"EW 


i 


THE  LEGEND  OF  JTJBAL, 


When  Cain  was  driven  from  Jehovah's  land 

He  wandered  eastward,  seeking  some  far  strand 

Ruled  by  kind  gods  who  asked  no  offerings 

Save  pure  field-fruits,  as  aromatic  things, 

To  feed  the  subtler  sense  of  frames  divine 

That  lived  on  fragrance  for  their  food  and  wine: 

Wild  joyous  gods,  who  winked  af  faults  and  folly. 

And  could  be  pitiful  and  melancholy. 

He  never  had  a  doubt  that  such  gods  were; 

He  looked  within,  and  saw  them  mirrored  there. 

Some  think  he  came  at  last  to  Tartary, 

And  some  to  Ind;  but,  howsoe'er  it  be. 

His  staff  he  planted  where  sweet  waters  ran. 

And  in  that  home  of  Cain  the  Arts  began. 

Man's  life  was  spacious  in  the  early  world: 
It  paused,  like  some  slow  ship  with  sail  unfurled 
Waiting  in  seas  by  scarce  a  wavelet  curled; 
Beheld  the  slow  star-paces  of  the  skies, 
And  grew  from  strength  to  strength  through  centuries; 
Saw  infant  trees  fill  out  their  giant  limbs. 
And  heard  a  thousand  times  the  sweet  birds'  marriage 
hymns. 

In  Cain's  young  city  none  had  heard  of  Death 
Save  him,  the  founder;  and  it  was  his  faith 
That  here,  away  from  harsh  Jehovah's  law, 
Man  was  immortal,  since  no  halt  or  flaw 
In  Cain's  own  frame  betrayed  six  hundred  years. 
But  dark  as  pines  that  autumn  never  sears 
His  locks  thronged  backward  as  he  ran,  his  frame 
Rose  like  the  orbed  sun  each  morn  the  same. 
Lake-mirrored  to  his  gaze;  and  that  red  brand. 
The  scorching  impress  of  Jehovah's  hand. 
Was  still  clear-edged  to  his  unwearied  eye. 
Its  secret  firm  in  time-fraught  memory. 

157 


158  THE  LEGEND  OF  JUBAL.  I 

He  said,  "  My  happy  offspring  shall  not  know 

That  the  red  life  from  out  a  man  may  flow 

Wlien  smitten  by  his  brother.^'     True,  his  race  '§ 

Bore  each  one  stamped  upon  his  new-born  face 

A  copy  of  the  brand  no  whit  less  clear; 

But  every  mother  held  that  little  copy  dear.  I 

Thus  generations  in  glad  idlesse  throve, 
Nor  hunted  prey,  nor  with  each  other  strove; 
For  clearest  springs  were  plenteous  in  the  land. 
And  gourds  for  cups;  the  ripe  fruits  sought  the  hand. 
Bending  the  laden  boughs  with  fragrant  gold; 
And  for  their  roofs  and  garments  wealth  untold 
Lay  everywhere  in  grasses  and  broad  leaves: 
They  labored  gently,  as  a  maid  who  weaves 
Her  hair  in  mimic  mats,  and  pauses  oft 
And  strokes  across  her  palm  the  tresses  soft. 
Then  peeps  to  watch  the  poised  butterfly. 
Or  little  burdened  ants  that  homeward  hie. 
Time  was  but  leisure  to  their  lingering  thought. 
There  was  no  need  for  haste  to  finish  aught; 
But  sweet  beginnings  were  repeated  still 
Like  infant  babblings  that  no  task  fulfill; 
For  love,  that  loved  not  change,  constrained  the  simple 
will. 

Till,  hurling  stones  in  mere  athletic  joy. 
Strong  Lamech  struck  and  killed  his  fairest  boy. 
And  tried  to  wake  him  with  the  tenderest  cries. 
And  fetched  and  held  before  the  glazed  eyes 
The  things  they  best  had  loved  to  look  upon; 
But  never  glance  or  smile  or  sigh  he  won. 
The  generations  stood  around  those  twain 
Helplessly  gazing  till  their  father  Cain 
Parted  the  press,  and  said,  "  He  will  not  wake; 
This  is  the  endless  sleep,  and  we  must  make 
A  bed  deep  down  for  him  beneath  the  sod; 
For  know  my  sons,  there  is  a  mighty  God 
Angry  with  all  man's  race,  but  most  with  me. 
I  fled  from  out  His  land  in  vain  I — 'tis  He 
Who  came  and  slew  the  lad,  for  He  has  found 
This  home  of  ours,  and  we  shall  all  be  bound 
By  the  harsh  bands  of  His  most  cruel  will. 
Which  any  moment  may  some  dear  one  kill. 


THE   LEGEND   OF   JUBAL  159 

Nay,  though  we  live  for  countless  moons,  at  last 

"We  and  all  ours  shall  die  like  summers  past. 

This  is  Jehovah's  will,  and  He  is  strong, 

I  thought  the  way  I  traveled  was  too  long 

For  Him  to  follow  me:  my  thought  was  vain! 

He  walks  unseen,  but  leaves  a  track  of  pain. 

Pale  Death  His  footprint  is,  and  He  will  come  again!" 

And  a  new  spirit  from  that  hour  came  o'er 

The  race  of  Cain:  soft  idlesse  was  no  more 

But  even  the  sunshine  had  a  heart  of  care, 

Smiling  with  hidden  dread — a  mother  fair 

Who  folding  to  her  breast  a  dying  child 

Beams  with  feigned  joy  that  but  makes  sadness  mild. 

Death  was  now  lord  of  Life,  and  at  his  word 

Time,  vague  as  air  before,  new  terrors  stirred. 

With  measured  wing  now  audibly  arose 

Throbbing  through  all  things  to  some  unknown  close. 

Now  glad  Content  by  clutching  Haste  was  torn, 

And  Work  grew  eager,  and  Device  was  born. 

It  seemed  the  light  was  never  loved  before, 

Now  each  man  said,  "'Twill  go  and  come  no  more.'' 

No  budding  branch,  no  pebble  from  the  brook, 

No  form,  no  shadow,  but  new  dearness  took 

From  the  one  thought  that  life  must  have  an  end; 

And  the  last  parting  now  began  to  send 

Diffusive  dread  through  love  and  wedded  bliss. 

Thrilling  them  into  finer  tenderness. 

Then  Memory  disclosed  her  face  divine. 

That  like  the  calm  nocturnal  lights  doth  shine 

Within  the  soul,  and  shows  the  sacred  graves. 

And  shows  the  presence  that  no  sunlight  craves, 

No  space,  no  warmth,  but  moves  among  them  all; 

Gone  and  yet  here,  and  coming  at  each  call. 

With  ready  voice  and  eyes  that  understand, 

And  lips  that  ask  a  kiss,  and  dear  responsive  hand. 

Thus  to  Cain's  race  death  was  tear-watered  seed 
Of  various  life  and  action-shaping  need. 
But  chief  the  sons  of  Lamech  felt  the  stings 
Of  new  ambition,  and  the  force  that  springs 
In  passion  beating  on  the  sliores  of  fate. 
They  said,  "There  comes  a  night  when  all  too  late 
The  mind  shall  long  to  prompt  the  achieving  hand^ 
The  eager  thought  behind  closed  portals  stand. 


160  THE  LEGEND  OF  JUBAL. 

And  the  last  wishes  to  mute  lips  press 

Buried  ere  death  in  silent  helplessness. 

Then  while  the  soul  its  way  with  sound  can  cleave. 

And  while  the  arm  is  strong  to  strike  and  heave. 

Let  soul  and  arm  give  shape  that  will  abide 

And  rule  above  our  graves,  and  power  divide 

With  that  great  god  of  day,  whose  rays  must  bend 

As  we  shall  make  the  moving  shadows  tend. 

Come,  let  us  fashion  acts  that  are  to  be, 

When  we  shall  lie  in  darkness  silently, 

As  our  young  brother  doth,  whom  yet  we  see 

Fallen  and  slain,  but  reigning  in  our  will 

By  that  one  image  of  him  pale  and  still." 

For  Lamech's  sons  were  heroes  of  their  race: 

Jabal,  the  eldest,  bore  upon  his  face 

The  look  of  that  calm  river-god,  the  Nile, 

Mildly  secure  in  power  that  needs  not  guile. 

But  Tubal-Cain  was  restless  as  the  fire 

That  glows  and  spreads  and  leaps  from  high  to  highei 

Where'er  is  aught  to  seize  or  to  subdue; 

Strong  as  a  storm  he  lifted  or  o'erthrew. 

His  urgent  limbs  like  rounded  granite  grew, 

Such  granite  as  the  plunging  torreiit  wears 

And  roaring  rolls  around  through  countless  years. 

But  strength  that  still  on  movement  must  be  fed. 

Inspiring  thought  of  change,  devices  bred, 

And  urged  his  mind  through  earth  and  air  to  rove 

For  force  that  he  could  conquer  if  he  strove. 

For  lurking  forms  that  might  new  tasks  fulfill 

And  yield  unwilling  to  his  stronger  will. 

Such  Tubal-Cain.     But  Jubal  had  a  frame 

Fashioned  to  finer  senses,  which  became 

A  yearning  for  some  hidden  soul  of  things. 

Some  outward  touch  complete  on  inner  springs 

That  vaguely  moving  bred  a  lonely  pain, 

A  want  that  did  but  stronger  grow  with  gain 

Of  all  good  else,  as  spirits  might  be  sad 

For  lack  of  speech  to  tell  us  they  are  glad. 

Now  Jabal  learned  to  tame  the  lowing  kine. 

And  from  their  udders  drew  the  snow-white  wine 

That  stirs  the  innocent  joy,  and  makes  the  stream 

Of  elemental  life  with  fullness  teem; 

The  star-browed  calves  he  nursed  with  feeding  hand^ 

And  sheltered  them,  till  all  the  little  band 


THE    LEGEi>TD    OF    JUBAL.  161 

Stood  mustered  gazing  at  the  sunset  way 

Whence  he  would  come  with  store  at  close  of  day. 

He  soothed  the  silly  sheep  with  friendly  tone 

And  reared  their  staggering  lambs  that,  older  grown, 

Followed  his  steps  with  sense-taught  memory; 

Till  he,  their  shepherd,  could  their  leader  be 

And  guide  them  through  the  pastures  as  he  would. 

With  sway  that  grew  from  ministry  of  good. 

He  spread  his  tents  upon  the  grassy  plain 

Which,  eastward  widening  like  the  open  main. 

Showed  the  first  whiteness  'neath  the  morning  star; 

Near  him  his  sister,  deft,  as  women  are. 

Plied  her  quick  skill  in  sequence  to  his  thought 

Till  the  hid  treasures  of  the  milk  she  caught 

Revealed  like  pollen  'mid  the  petals  white. 

The  golden  pollen,  virgin  to  the  light. 

Even  the  she-wolf  with  young,  on  rapine  bent. 

He  caught  and  tethered  m  his  mat-walled  tent. 

And  cherished  all  her  little  sharp-nosed  young 

Till  the  small  race  with  hope  and  terror  clung 

About  his  footsteps,  till  each  new-reared  brood, 

Eemoter  from  the  memories  of  the  wood, 

More  glad  discerned  their  common  home  with  man. 

This  was  the  work  of  Jabal :  he  began 

The  pastoral  life,  and,  sire  of  joys  to  be, 

Spread  the  sweet  ties  that  bind  the  family 

O'er  dear  dumb  souls  that  thrilled  at  man's  caress. 

And  shared  his  pains  with  patient  helpfulness. 

But  Tubal-Cain  had  caught  and  yoked  the  fire. 

Yoked  it  with  stones  that  bent  the  flaming  spire 

And  made  it  roar  in  prisoned  servitude 

Within  the  furnace,  till  with  force  subdued 

It  changed  all  forms  he  willed  to  work  upon. 

Till  hard  from  soft,  and  soft  from  hard,  he  won. 

The  pliant  clay  he  moulded  as  he  would. 

And  laughed  with  Joy  when  'mid  the  heat  it  stood 

Shaped  as  his  hand  had  chosen,  while  tlic  mass 

That  from  his  hold,  dark,  obstinate,  would  pass, 

He  drew  all  glowing  from  the  busy  heat, 

All  breathing  as  with  life  that  he  could  beat 

With  thundering  hammer,  making  it  obey 

His  will  creative,  like  the  pale  soft  clay. 

Each  day  he  wrought  and  better  than  he  planned, 

Shape  breeding  shape  beneath  his  restless  hand. 


162  THE  LEGEND  OF  JUBAL. 

(The  soul  without  still  helps  the  soul  within. 
And  its  delf  magic  ends  where  we  begin.) 
Nay,  in  his  dreams  his  hammer  he  would  wield 
And  seem  to  see  a  myriad  types  revealed, 
Then  spring  with  wondering  triumphant  cry, 
And,  lest  the  inspiring  vision  should  go  by. 
Would  rush  to  labor  with  that  plastic  zeal 
Which  all  the  passion  of  our  life  can  steal 
For  force  to  work  with.     Each  day  saw  the  birth 
Of  various  forms  which,  ilung  upon  the  earth. 
Seemed  harmless  toys  to  cheat  the  exacting  hour. 
But  were  as  seeds  instinct  with  hidden  power. 
The  ax,  the  club,  the  spiked  wheel,  the  chain, 
Held  silently  the  shrieks  and  moans  of  pain; 
And  near  them  latent  lay  in  shear  and  spade, 
In  the  strong  bar,  the  saw,  and  deep-curved  blade. 
Glad  voices  of  the  hearth  and  harvest-home. 
The  social  good,  and  all  earth's  joy  to  come. 
Thus  to  mixed  ends  wrought  Tubal;  and  they  say. 
Some  things  he  made  have  lasted  to  this  day; 
As,  thirty  silver  pieces  that  were  found 
By  Noah's  cliildren  buried  in  the  ground. 
He  made  them  from  mere  hunger  of  device, 
Those  small  white  discs;  but  they  became  the  price 
The  traitor  Judas  sold  his  Master  for; 
And  men  still  handling  them  in  peace  and  war 
Catch  foul  disease,  that  come  as  appetite, 
And  lurks  and  clings  as  withering,  damning  blight. 
But  Tubal-Cain  wot  not  of  treachery. 
Nor  greedy  lust,  nor  any  ill  to  be, 
Save  the  one  ill  of  sinking  into  nought, 
Banished  from  action  and  act-shaping  thought. 
He  was  the  sire  of  swift-transforming  skill. 
Which  arms  for  conquest  man's  ambitious  will; 
And  round  him  gladly,  as  his  hammer  rung, 
Gathered  the  elders  and  the  growing  young: 
These  handled  vaguely  and  those  plied  the  tools. 
Till,  happy  chance  begetting  conscious  rules. 
The  home  of  Cain  with  industry  was  rife. 
And  glimpes  of  a  strong  persistent  life, 
Panting  through  generations  as  one  breath. 
And  filling  with  its  soul  the  blank  of  death. 

Jubal,  too,  watched  the  hammer,  till  his  eyes. 
No  longer  following  its  fall  or  rise. 


THE    LEGEND    OF   .TUBAL.  163 

Seemed  glad  with  something  that  they  could  not  see. 

But  only  listened  to  —  some  melody. 

Wherein  dumb  longings  inward  speech  had  found. 

Won  from  the  common  store  of  struggling  sound. 

Then,  as  the  metal  shapes  more  various  grew. 

And,  hurled  upon  each  other,  resonance  drew. 

Each  gave  new  tones,  the  revelations  dim 

Of  some  external  soul  that  spoke  for  him: 

The  hollow  vessel's  clang,  the  clash,  the  boom. 

Like  light  that  makes  wide  spiritual  room 

And  skyey  spaces  in  the  spaceless  thought. 

To  Jubal  such  enlarged  passion  brought 

That  love,  hope,  rage,  and  all  experience, 

Were  fused  in  vaster  being,  fetching  thence 

Concords  and  discords,  cadences  and  cries 

That  seemed  from  some  world-shrouded  soul  to  rise. 

Some  rapture  more  intense,  some  mightier  rage, 

Some  living  sea  that  burst  the  bounds  of  man's  brief  age. 

Then  with  such  blissful  trouble  and  glad  care 

For  growth  Avithin  unborn  as  mothers  bear. 

To  the  far  woods  he  wandered,  listening. 

And  heard  the  birds  their  little  stories  sing 

In  notes  whose  rise  and  fall  seemed  melted  speech  — 

Melted  with  tears,  smiles,  glances  —  that  can  reach 

More  quickly  through  our  frame's  deep-winding  night. 

And  without  thought  raise  thought's  best  fruit,  delight. 

Pondering,  he  sought  his  home  again  and  heard 

The  fluctuant  changes  of  the  spoken  word: 

The  deep  remonstrance  and  the  argued  want. 

Insistent  first  in  close  monotonous  chant. 

Next  leaping  upward  to  defiant  stand 

Or  downward  beating  like  the  resolute  hand; 

The  mother's  call,  the  children's  answering  cry. 

The  laugh's  light  cataract  tumbling  from  on  high; 

The  suasive  repetitions  Jabal  taught, 

That  timid  browsing  cattle  homeward  brought; 

The  clear-winged  fugue  of  echoes  vanishing; 

And  through  them  all  the  hammer's  rhythmic  ring. 

Jubal  sat  lonely,  all  around  was  dim, 

Yet  his  face  glowed  with  light  revealed  to  him: 

For  as  the  delicate  stream  of  odor  wakes 

The  thought-wed  sentience  and  some  image  makes 

From  out  the  mingled  fragments  of  tlie  past, 

Finelv  compact  in  wholeness  that  will  last. 


164  THE  LEGEXD  Of  JUBAL. 

So  streamed  as  from  the  body  of  each  sound 
Subtler  pulsations,  swift  as  warmth,  which  found 
All  prisoned  germs  and  all  their  powers  unbound, 
Till  thought  self-luminous  flamed  from  memory. 
And  in  creative  vision  wandered  free. 
Then  Jubal,  standing,  rapturous  arms  upraised. 
And  on  the  dark  with  eager  eyes  he  gazed. 
As  had  some  manifested  god  been  there. 
It  was  his  thought  he  saw:  the  presence  fair 
Of  unachieved  achievement,  the  high  task. 
The  struggling  unborn  spirit  that  doth  ask 
With  irresistible  cry  for  blood  and  breath. 
Till  feeding  its  great  life  we  sink  in  death. 

He  said,  "  Were  now  those  mighty  tones  and  cries 

That  from  the  giant  soul  of  earth  arise, 

Those  groans  of  some  great  travail  lieard  from  far. 

Some  power  at  wrestle  with  the  things  that  are, 

Those  sounds  which  vary  with  the  varying  form 

Of  clay  and  metal,  and  in  sightless  swarm 

Fill  the  wide  space  with  tremors:  were  these  wed 

To  human  voices  with  such  passion  fed 

As  does  but  glimmer  in  our  common  speech, 

But  might  flame  out  in  tones  whose  changing  reach. 

Surpassing  meagre  need,  informs  the  sense 

With  fuller  union,  finer  difference  — 

Were  this  great  vision,  now  obscurely  bright 

As  morning  hills  that  melt  in  new-poured  light, 

A'Vrought  into  solid  form  and  living  sound. 

Moving  with  ordered  throb  and  sure  rebound, 

Then Nay,  I  Jubal  will  that  work  begin! 

The  generations  of  our  race  shall  win 

New  life,  that  grows  from  out  the  heart  of  this. 

As  spring  from  winter;  or  as  lovers'  bliss 

From  out  the  dull  unknown  of  unwaked  energies." 

Thus  he  resolved,  and  in  the  soul-fed  light 
Of  coming  ages  waited  through  the  night. 
Watching  for  that  near  dawn  whose  chiller  ray 
Showed  but  the  unchanged  world  of  yesterday; 
Where  all  the  order  of  his  dream  divine 
Lay  like  Olympian  forms  within  the  mine; 
Where  fervor  that  could  fill  tJie  earthly  round 
With  thronged  joys  of  form-begotten  sound 


THE  LEGEND  OF  JUBAL.  l65 

Must  shrink  intense  within  the  patient  power 
That  lonely  labors  through  the  niggard  hour. 
Such  patience  have  the  heroes  who  begin. 
Sailing  the  first  to  lands  which  others  win. 
Jubal  must  dare  as  great  beginners  dare. 
Strike  formes  first  way  in  matter  rude  and  bare. 
And,  yearning  vaguely  toward  the  plenteous  choir 
Of  the  world's  harvest,  make  one  poor  small  lyre. 
He  made  it,  and  from  out  its  measured  frame 
Drew  the  harmonic  soul,  whose  answers  came 
With  guidance  sweet  and  lessons  of  delight 
Teaching  to  ear  and  hand  the  blissful  Right, 
Where  strictest  law  is  gladness  to  the  sense 
And  all  desire  bends  toward  obedience. 

Then  Jubal  poured  his  triumph  in  a  song  — 

The  rapturous  word  that  rapturous  notes  prolong 

As  radiance  streams  from  smallest  things  that  burn. 

Or  thought  of  loving  into  love  doth  turn. 

And  still  his  lyre  gave  companionship 

In  sense-taught  concert  as  of  lip  with  lip. 

Alone  amid  the  hills  at  first  he  tried 

His  winged  song;  then  with  adoring  pride 

And  bridegroom's  joy  at  leading  forth  his  bride. 

He  said,  "  This  wonder  which  my  soul  hath  found. 

This  heart  of  music  in  the  might  of  sound. 

Shall  forthwith  be  the  share  of  all  our  race 

And  like  the  morning  gladden  common  space: 

The  song  shall  spread  and  swell  as  rivers  do. 

And  I  will  teach  our  youth  v;ith  skill  to  woo 

This  living  lyre,  to  know  its  secret  will. 

Its  fine  division  of  the  good  and  ill. 

So  shall  men  call  me  sire  of  harmony. 

And  where  great  Song  is,  there  my  life  shall  be. 

Thus  glorying  as  a  god  beneficent. 

Forth  from  his  solitary  joy  he  went 

To  bless  mankind.     It  was  at  evening. 

When  shadows  lengthen  from  each  westward  thing, 

When  imminence  of  cliange  makes  sense  more  fine 

And  light  seems  holier  in  its  grand  decline. 

The  fruit-trees  wore  their  studded  coronal. 

Earth  and  her  children  were  at  festival. 

Glowing  as  with  one  heart  and  one  consent — 

Thought,  love,  trees,  rocks,  iusweei,  warm  radiance  blent, 


166  THE   LEGEXD    OF   JUBAL. 

The  tribe  of  Cain  was  resting  on  tlie  ground, 

The  various  ages  wreathed  in  one  broad  round. 

Here  lay,  while  children  peeped  o'er  his  huge  thighs. 

The  sinewy  man  embrowned  by  centuries; 

Here  the  broad-bosomed  mother  of  the  strong 

Looked,  like  Demeter,  placid  o'er  the  throng 

Of  young,  lithe  forms  whose  rest  was  movement  too — 

Tricks,  prattle,  nods;  and  laughs  that  lightly  flew. 

And  swayings  as  of  flower-beds  where  Love  blew. 

For  all  had  feasted  well  upon  the  flesh 

Of  juicy  fruits,  on  nuts,  and  honey  fresh, 

And  now  their  wine  was  health-bred  merriment, 

Which  through  the  generations  circling  went. 

Leaving  none  sad,  for  even  father  Cain 

Smiled  as  a  Titan  might,  despising  pain. 

Jabal  sat  climbed  on  by  a  playful  ring 

Of  children,  lambs  and  whelps,  whose  gamboling, 

With  tiny  hoofs,  paws,  hands,  and  dimpled  feet. 

Made  barks,  bleats,  laughs,  in  pretty  hubbub  meet. 

But  Tul^aFs  hammer  rang  from  far  away. 

Tubal  alone  would  keep  no  holiday. 

His  furnace  must  not  slack  for  any  feast. 

For  of  all  hardship  work  he  counted  least; 

He  scorned  all  rest  but  sleep,  where  every  dream 

Made  his  repose  more  potent  action  seem. 

Yet  with  health's  nectar  some  strange  thirst  was  blent. 
The  fateful  growth,  the  unnamed  discontent, 
The  inward  shaping  toward  some  unborn  power. 
Some  deeper-breathing  act,  the  being's  flower. 
After  all  gestures,  words,  and  speech  of  eyes. 
The  soul  had  more  to  tell,  and  broke  in  sighs. 

Then  from  the  east,  with  glory  on  his  head 
Such  as  low-slanting  beams  on  corn-waves  spread. 
Came  Jubal  with  his  lyre:  there  'mid  the  throng. 
Where  the  blank  space  was,  poured  a  solemn  song. 
Touching  his  lyre  to  full  harmonic  throb 
And  measured  pulse,  with  cadences  that  sob. 
Exult  and  cry,  and  search  the  inmost  deep 
Where  the  dark  sources  of  new  passion  sleep. 
Joy  took  the  air,  aiid  took  each  breathing  soul. 
Embracing  them  in  one  entranced  whole. 
Yet  thrilled  each  varying  frame  to  various  ends. 
As  bprmg  new-waking  through  the  creature  sends 


THE    LEGEND    OF   JUBAL.  167 

Or  rage  or  tenderness;  more  plenteous  life 

Here  breeding  dread,  and  there  a  iiercer  strife. 

He  who  had  lived  through  twice  three  centuries. 

Whose  months  monotonous,  like  trees  on  trees 

In  hoary  forests,  stretched  a  backward  maze, 

Dreamed  himself  diml}^  through  the  traveled  days 

Till  in  clear  light  he  paused,  and  felt  the  sun 

That  warmed  him  when  he  was  a  little  one; 

Felt  that  true  heaven,  the  recovered  past. 

The  dear  small  Known  amid  the  Unknown  vast. 

And  in  that  heaven  wept.     But  younger  limbs 

Thrilled   toward   the  future,  that   bright   land   which 

swims 
In  western  glory,  isles  and  streams  and  bays. 
Where  hidden  i^leasures  float  in  golden  haze. 
And  in  all  these  the  rhythmic  influence, 
Sweetly  o'ercharging  the  delighted  sense. 
Flowed  out  in  movements,  little  waves  that  spread 
Enlarging,  till  in  tidal  union  led 
The  youths  and  maidens  both  alike  long-tressed. 
By  grace-inspiring  melody  possessed, 
Eose  in  slow  dance,  with  beauteous  floating  swerve 
Of  limbs  and  hair,  and  many  a  melting  curve 
Of  ringed  feet  swayed  by  each  close-linked  palm: 
Then  Jubal  poured  more  rapture  in  his  psalm. 
The  dance  fired  music,  music  fired  the  dance. 
The  glow  diffusive  lit  each  countenance. 
Till  all  the  gazing  elders  rose  and  stood 
With  glad  yet  awful  shock  of  that  mysterious  good. 

Even  Tubal  caught  the  sound,  and  wondering  came. 
Urging  his  sooty  bulk  like  smoke-wrapt  flame 
Till  he  could  see  his  brother  with  the  lyre. 
The  work  for  which  he  lent  his  furnace-fire 
And  diligent  hammer,  witting  nought  of  this — 
This  power  in  metal  shape  which  made  strange  bliss. 
Entering  within  him  like  a  dream  full-fraught 
With  new  creations  finished  in  a  thought. 

The  sun  had  sunk,  but  music  still  was  there, 

And  when  this  ceased,  still  triumph  filled  the  air: 

It  seemed  the  stars  were  shining  with  delight 

And  that  no  night  was  ever  like  this  night. 

All  clung  with  praise  to  Jubal:  some  besought 

Tliat  he  would  teach  them  his  new  skill;  some  caught, 


I 


168  THE   LEGEND    OF   JUBAL. 

Swiftly  as  smiles  are  caught  in  looks  that  meet. 
The  tone's  melodic  change  and  rhythmic  beat: 
^Twas  easy  following  where  invention  trod — 
All  eyes  can  see  when  light  flows  out  from  God. 

And  thus  did  Jubal  to  his  race  reveal  i 

Music  their  larger  soul,  where  woe  and  weal 
Filling  the  resonant  chords,  the  song,  the  dance. 
Moved  with  a  wider-winged  utterance. 
Now  many  a  lyre  was  fashioned,  many  a  song 
Raised  echoes  new,  old  echoes  to  prolong, 
Till  things  of  Jubal's  making  w^ere  so  rife, 
*'  Hearing  myself,"  he  said,  "hems  in  my  life. 
And  I  will  get  me  to  some  far-off  land, 
Where  higher  mountains  under  heaven  stand 
And  touch  the  blue  at  rising  of  the  stars. 
Whose  song  they  hear  where  no  rough  mingling  mars 
The  great  clear  voices.     Such  lands  there  must  be. 
Where  varying  forms  make  varying  symphony — 
Where  other  thunders  roll  amid  the  hills. 
Some  mightier  wind  a  mightier  forest  fills 
With  other  strains  through  other-shapen  boughs; 
Where  bees  and  birds  and  beasts  that  hunt  or  browse 
Will  teach  me  songs  I  know  not.     Listening  there, 
My  life  shall  grow  like  trees  both  tall  and  fair 
That  rise  and  spread  and  bloom  toward  fuller  fruit  each 
year." 

He  took  a  raft,  and  traveled  with  the  stream 
Southward  for  many  a  league,  till  he  might  deem 
He  saw  at  last  the  pillars  of  the  sky. 
Beholding  mountains  whose  white  majesty 
Eushed  through  him  as  new  aAve,  and  made  new  song 
That  swept  with  fuller  wave  the  chords  along. 
Weighting  his  voice  with  deep  religious  chime. 
The  iteration  of  slow  chant  sublime. 
It  was  the  region  long  inhabited 
By  all  the  race  of  Seth;  and  Jubal  said: 
*'  Here  have  I  found  my  thirsty  soul's  desire. 

Eastward  the  hills  touch  heaven,  and  evening's  fire 
Flames  through  deep  waters;  I  will  take  my  rest. 
And  feed  anew  from  my  great  mother's  breast, 
The  sky-clasped  Earth,  whose  voices  nurture  me 
As  the  flowers'  sweetness  doth  the  honey-bee." 


THE    LEGEND    OF   JTJBAL.  169 

He  lingered  wandering  for  many  an  age, 
And,  sowing  music,  made  high  heritage 
For  generations  far  beyond  the  Flood — 
For  the  poor  late-begotten  human  brood 
Born  to  life's  weary  brevity  and  perilous  good. 

And  ever  as  he  traveled  he  would  climb 

The  farthest  mountain,  yet  the  heavenly  chime. 

The  mighty  tolling  of  the  far-off  spheres 

Beating  their  pathway,  never  touched  his  ears. 

But  wheresoe'er  he  rose  the  heavens  rose. 

And  the  far-gazing  mountain  could  disclose 

Nought  but  a  wider  earth;  until  one  height 

Showed  him  the  ocean  stretched  in  liquid  light. 

And  he  could  hear  its  multitudinous  roar. 

Its  plunge  and  hiss  upon  the  pebbled  shore: 

Then  Jubal  silent  sat,  and  touched  his  lyre  no  more^ 

He  thought,  "The  world  is  great,  but  I  am  weak. 
And  where  the  sky  bends  is  no  solid  peak 
To  give  me  footing,  but  instead,  this  main — 
Myriads  of  maddened  horses  thundering  o'er  the  plain. 

''  New  voices  come  to  me  where'er  I  roam, 
My  heart  too  widens  with  its  widening  h'ome: 
But  song  grows  weaker,  and  the  heart  must  break 
For  lack  of  voice,  or  fingers  that  can  wake 
The  lyre's  full  answer;  nay,  its  chords  were  all 
Too  few  to  meet  the  growing  spirit's  call. 
The  former  songs  seem  little,  yet  no  more 
Can  soul,  hand,  voice,  with  interchanging  lore 
Tell  what  the  earth  is  saying  unto  me: 
The  secret  is  too  great,  I  hear  confusedly. 

"  No  farther  will  I  travel:  once  again 

My  brethren  I  will  see,  and  that  fair  plain 

Where  I  and  Song  were  born.     There  fresh-voiced  youth 

Will  pour  my  strains  with  all  the  early  truth 

Which  now  abides  not  in  my  voice  and  hands. 

But  only  in  the  soul,  the  will  that  stands 

Helpless  to  move.     My  tribe  remembering 

Will  cry  'Tis  he!'  and  run  to  greet  me,  welcoming." 

The  way  was  weary.     Many  a  date-palm  grew, 
And  shook  out  clustered  gold  against  the  blue. 


170  THE  LEGEND  OF  JUBAL. 

While  Jubal,  guided  by  the  steadfast  spheres. 

Sought  the  dear  home  of  those  first  eager  years. 

When,. with  fresh  vision  fed,  the  fuller  will 

Took  living  outward  shape  in  pliant  skill; 

For  still  he  hoped  to  find  the  former  things. 

And  the  warm  gladness  recognition  brings. 

His  footsteps  erred  among  the  mazy  woods 

And  long  illusive  sameness  of  the  floods, 

Winding  and  wandering.     Through  far  regions,  strange 

With  Gentile  homes  and  faces,  did  he  range. 

And  left  his  music  in  their  memory, 

And  left  at  last,  Avhen  nought  besides  would  free 

His  homeward  steps  from  clinging  hands  and  cries. 

The  ancient  lyre.     And  now  in  ignorant  eyes 

No  sign  remained  of  Jubal,  Lamech's  son. 

That  mortal  frame  wherein  was  first  begun 

The  immortal  life  of  song.     His  withered  brow 

Pressed  over  eyes  that  held  no  lightning  now, 

His  locks  streamed  whiteness  on  the  hurrying  air. 

The  unresting  soul  had  worn  itself  quite  bare 

Of  beauetous  token,  as  the  outworn  might 

Of  oaks  slow  dying,  gaunt  in  summer's  light. 

His  full  deep  voice  toward  thinnest  treble  ran: 

He  was  the  rune-writ  story  of  a  man. 

And  so  at  last  he  neared  the  well-known  land. 
Could  see  the  hills  in  ancient  order  stand 
With  friendly  faces  whose  familiar  gaze 
Looked  through  the  sunshine  of  his  childish  days; 
Knew  the  deep-shadowed  folds  of  hanging  woods. 
And  seemed  to  see  the  self-same  insect  broods 
Whirling  and  quivering  o'er  the  flowers — to  hear 
The  self-same  cuckoo  making  distance  near. 
Yea,  the  dear  Earth,  with  mother's  constancy. 
Met  and  embraced  him,  and  said,  "Thou  art  he! 
This  was  thy  cradle,  here  my  breast  w^as  thine. 
Where  feeding,  thou  didst  all  thy  life  entwine 
With  my  sky-wedded  life  in  heritage  divine." 

But  wending  ever  through  the  watered  plain. 

Firm  not  to  rest  save  in  the  home  of  Cain, 

He  saw  dread  Change,  with  dubious  face  and  cold 

That  never  kept  a  welcome  for  the  old, 

Like  some  strange  heir  iipon  the  hearth,  arise 

Saying  "  This  home  is  mine."     He  thought  his  eyes 


THE  LEGEND  OF  JUBAL.  173 

Mocked  all  deep  memories,  as  things  new  made. 

Usurping  sense,  make  old  things  shrink  and  fade 

And  seem  ashamed  to  meet  the  staring  day. 

His  memory  saw  a  small  foot-trodden  way. 

His  eyes  a  broad  far-stretching  paven  road 

Bordered  with  many  a  tomb  and  fair  abode; 

The  little  city  that  once  nestled  low 

As  buzzing  groups  about  some  central  glow. 

Spread  like  a  murmuring  crowd  o'er  plain  and  steep. 

Or  monster  huge  in  heavy-breathmg  sleep. 

His  heart  grew  faint,  and  tremblingly  he  sank 

Close  by  the  wayside  on  a  weed-grown  bank. 

Not  far  from  where  a  new-raised  temple  stood. 

Sky-roofed,  and  fragrant  with  wrought  cedar  wood. 

The  morning  sun  was  high;  his  rays  fell  hot 

On  this  hap-chosen,  dusty,  common  spot. 

On  the  dry- withered  grass  and  withered  man: 

That  wondrous  frame  where  melody  began 

Lay  as  a  tomb  defaced  that  no  eye  cared  to  scan. 

But  while  he  sank  far  music  reached  his  ear. 
He  listened  until  wonder  silenced  fear 
And  gladness  wonder;  for  the  broadening  stream 
Of  sound  advancing  was  his  early  dream. 
Brought  like  fulfillment  of  forgotten  prayer; 
As  if  his  soul,  breathed  out  upon  the  air. 
Had  held  the  invisible  seeds  of  harmony 
Quick  with  the  various  strains  of  life  to  be. 
He  listened:  the  sweet  mingled  difference 
With  charm  alternate  took  the  meeting  sense; 
Then  bursting  like  some  shield-broad  lily  red. 
Sudden  and  near  the  trumpet's  notes  out- spread, 
And  soon  his  eyes  could  see  the  metal  flower. 
Shining  upturned,  out  on  the  morning  pour 
Its  incense  audible;  could  see  a  train 
From  out  the  street  slow-winding  on  the  plain 
With  lyres  and  cymbals,  flutes  and  psalteries. 
While  men,  youths,  maids,  in  concert  sang  to  these 
With  various  throat,  or  in  succession  poured. 
Or  in  full  volume  mingled.     But  one  word 
Kuled  each  recurriait  rise  and  answering  fall. 
As  when  the  multitudes  adoring  call 
On  some  great  name  divine,  their  common  soul, 
The  common  need,  love,  joy,  that  knits  them  in  one 
whole. 


173  THE  LEGEND  OF  JUBAL. 

The  word  was  '^  Jubal!'' "  Jubal"  filled  the  air 

Aud  seemed  to  ride  aloft,  a  spirit  there. 

Creator  of  the  choir,  the  full-fraught  strain 

That  grateful  rolled  itself  to  hira  again. 

The  aged  man  adust  upon  the  bank — 

Whom  no  eye  saw — at  first  with  rapture  drank 

The  bliss  of  music,  then,  with  swelling  heart. 

Felt,  this  was  his  own  being's  greater  part. 

The  universal  joy  once  born  in  him. 

But  when  the  train,  with  living  face  and  limb 

And  vocal  breath,  came  nearer  and  more  near, 

The  longing  grew  that  they  should  hold  him  dear; 

Him,  Lamech's  son,  whom  all  their  fathers  knew. 

The  breathing  Jubal — him,  to  whom  their  love  was  due. 

All  was  forgotten  but  the  burning  need 

To  claim  his  fuller  self,  to  claim  the  deed 

That  lived  away  from  him,  and  grew  apart. 

While  he  as  from  a  tomb,  with  lonely  heart. 

Warmed  by  no  meeting  glance,  no  hand  that  pressed. 

Lay  chill  amid  the  life  his  life  had  blessed. 

What  though  his  song  should  spread  from  man's  small 

race  . 

Out  through  the  myriad  worlds  that  people  space, 
And  make  the  heavens  one  joy-diffusing  choir? — 
Still  'nfid  that  vast  would  throb  the  keen  desire 
Of  this  poor  aged  flesh,  this  eventide. 
This  twilight  soon  in  darkness  to  subside. 
This  little  pulse  of  self  that,  having  glowed 
Through  thrice  three  centuries,  and  divinely  strowed 
The  light  of  music  through  the  vague  of  sound. 
Ached  with  its  smallness  still  in  good  that  had  no  bound. 

For  no  eye  saw  him,  while  with  loving  pride 
Each  voice  with  each  in  praise  of  Jubal  vied. 
Must  he  in  conscious  trance,  dumb,  helpless  lie 
While  all  that  ardent  kindred  passed  him  by? 
His  flesh  cried  out  to  live  with  living  men 
And  join  that  soul  which  to  the  inward  ken 
Of  all  the  hymning  train  was  present  there. 
Strong  passion's  daring  sees  not  aught  to  dare: 
The  frost-locked  starkness  of  his  frame  low-bent. 
His  voice's  penury  of  tones  long  spent. 
He  felt  not;  all  his  being  leaped  in  flame 
To  meet  his  kindred  as  they  onward  came 


THE  LEGEND  OF  JUBAL.  173 

Slackening  and  wheeling  toward  the  temj^Ie's  face: 
He  rushecf  before  them  to  the  glittering  space, 
And,  with  a  strength  that  was  but  strong  desire. 

Cried,  "  I  am  Jnbal,  I! 1  made  the  lyre!'' 

The  tones  amid  a  lake  of  silence  fell 

Broken  and  strained,  as  if  a  feeble  bell 

Had  tuneless  pealed  the  triumph  of  a  land 

To  listening  crowds  in  expectation  spanned. 

Sudden  came  showers  of  laughter  on  that  lake; 

They  spread  along  the  train  from  front  to  wake 

In  one  great  storm  of  merriment,  .while  he 

Shrank  doubting  whether  he  could  Jubal  be. 

And  not  a  dream  of  Jnbal,  whose  rich  vein 

Of  passionate  music  came  with  that  dream-pain 

Wherein  the  sense  slips  off  from  each  loved  thing 

And  all  appearance  is  mere  vanishing. 

But  ere  the  laughter  died  from  out  the  rear. 

Anger  in  front  saw  profanation  near; 

Jubal  was  but  a  name  in  each  man's  faith 

For  glorious  power  untouched  by  that  slow  death 

Which  creeps  with  creeping  time;  this  too,  the  spot. 

And  this  the  day,  it  must  be  crime  to  blot. 

Even  with  scoffing  at  a  madman's  lie: 

Jubal  was  not  a  name  to  wed  with  mockery. 

Two  rushed  upon  him:  two,  the  most  devout 

In  honor  of  great  Jubal,  thrust  him  out. 

And  beat  him  with  their  flutes.     'Twas  little  need; 

He  strove  not,  cried  not,  but  Avith  tottering  speed, 

As  if  the  scorn  and  howls  were  driving  Avind 

That  urged  his  body,  serving  so  the  mind 

Which  could  but  shrink  and  yearn,  he  sought  the  screen 

Of  thorny  thickets,  and  there  fell  unseen. 

The  immortal  name  of  Jubal  filled  the  sky. 

While  Jubal  lonely  laid  him  down  to  die. 

He  said  within  his  soul,  "^This  is  the  end: 

O'er  all  the  earth  to  wlierc  the  lieavens  bend 

And  hem  men's  travel,  I  have  breathed  my  soul: 

I  lie  here  now  the  remnant  of  that  whole. 

The  embers  of  a  life,  a  lonely  pain; 

As  far-off  rivers  to  my  thirst  were  vain, 

So  of  my  mighty  years  nought  comes  to  me  again,, 

''  Is  the  day  sinking?     Softest  coolness  springs 
From  something  round  me:  dewy  shadowy  w'ngs 


174  THE  LEGEND  OF  JUBAL. 

Enclose  me  all  around — no,  not  above — 
Is  moonlight  there?     I  see  a  face  of  love, 
Fair  as  sweet  music  when  my  heart  was  strong: 
Yea — art  thou  come  again  to  me,  great  song?'* 

The  face  bent  over  him  like  silver  night 

In  long-remembered  summers;  that  calm  light 

Of  days  which  shine  in  firmaments  of  thought, 

That  past  unchangeable,  from  change  still  wrought. 

And  gentlest  tones  were  with  the  vision  blent: 

He  knew  not  if  that  gaze  the  music  sent. 

Or  music  that  calm  gaze:  to  hear,  to  see. 

Was  but  one  undivided  ecstacy: 

The  raptured  senses  melted  into  one. 

And  parting  life  a  moment's  freedom  won 

From  in  and  outer,  as  a  little  child 

Sits  on  a  bank  and  sees  blue  heavens  mild 

Down  in  the  water,  and  forgets  its  limbs. 

And  knoweth  nought  save  the  blue  heaven  that  swims. 

"  Jubal/'  the  face  said,  "I  am  thy  loved  Past, 
The  soul  that  makes  thee  one  from  first  to  last. 
I  am  the  angel  of  thy  life  and  death, 
Thy  outbreathed  being  drawing  its  last  breath. 
Am  I  not  thine  alone,  a  dear  dead  bride 
Who  blest  thy  lot  above  all  men's  beside? 
Thy  bride  whom  thou  wouldst  never  change,  nor  take 
Any  bride  living,  for  that  dead  one's  sake? 
Was  I  not  all  thy  yearning  and  delight. 
Thy  chosen  search,  thy  senses'  beauteous  Eight, 
Which  still  had  been  the  hunger  of  thy  frame 
In  central  heaven,  hadst  thou  been  still  the  same? 
Wouldst  thou  have  asked  aught  else  from  any  god — 
Whether  with  gleaming  feet  on  earth  he  trod 
Or  thundered  through  the  skies — aught  else  for  share 
Of  mortal  good,  than  in  thy  soul  to  bear 
The  growth  of  song,  and  feel  the  sweet  unrest 
Of  the  world's  spring-tide  in  thy  conscious  breast? 
No,  thou  hadst  grasped  thy  lot  with  all  its  pain, 
Nor  loosed  it  any  painless  lot  to  gain 
Where  music's  voice  was  silent; 'for  thy  fate 
Was  human  music's  self  incorjiorate: 
Thy  senses'  keenness  and  thy  passionate  strife 
Were  flesh  of  her  flesh  and  her  womb  of  life. 


1 


THE   LtCGEND    OF   .TUBAL.  175 

And  greatly  hast  thou  lived,  for  not  alone 
With  hidden  raptures  were  her  secrets  shown. 
Buried  within  thee,  as  the  purple  light 
Of  gems  may  sleep  in  solitary  night; 
But  thy  expanding  joy  was  still  to  give, 
And  with  the  generous  air  in  song  to  live. 
Feeding  the  wave  of  ever-widening  bliss 
Where  fellowship  means  equal  perfectness. 
And  on  the  mountains  in  thy  wandering 
Thy  feet  were  beautiful  as  blossomed  spring. 
That  turns  the  leafless  wood  to  love's  glad  home. 
For  with  thy  coming  Melody  was  come. 
This  was  thy  lot,  to  feel,  create,  bestoAv, 
And  that  immeasurable  life  to  know 
From  which  the  fleshly  self  falls  shriveled,  dead, 
A  seed  primeval  that  has  forests  bred. 
It  is  the  glory  of  the  heritage 
Thy  life  has  left,  that  makes  thy  outcast  age : 
Thy  limbs  shall  lie  dark,  tombless  on  this  sod, 
Because  thou  shinest  in  man's  soul,  a  god, 
Who  found  and  gave  new  passion  and  new  joy 
That  nought  but  Earth's  destruction  can  destroy. 
Thy  gifts  to  give  was  thine  of  men  alone: 
'Twas  but  in  giving  that  thou  couldst  atone 
For  too  much  wealth  amid  their  poverty. " — 

The  words  seemed  melting  into  symphony. 
The  wings  upbore  him,  and  the  gazing  song 
Was  floating  him  the  heavenly  space  along, 
Where  mighty  harmonies  all  gently  fell 
Through  veiling  vastness,  like  the  far-off  bell. 
Till,  ever  onward  through  the  choral  blue. 
He  heard  more  faintly  and  more  faintly  knew, 
Qritting  mortality,  a  quenched  sun-wave, 
"I^  All-creating  Presence  for  his  grave. 


AGATHA. 


Co3iE  with  me  to  the  mountain,  not  where  rocks 
Soar  harsh  above  the  troops  of  hurrying  pines. 
But  wliere  the  earth  spreads  soft  and  rounded  breasts 
To  feed  her  children;  where  the  generous  hills 
Lift  a  green  isle  betwixt  the  sky  and  plain 
To  keep  some  Old  World  things  aloof  from  change. 
Here  too  'tis  hill  and  hollow:  new-born  streams 
With  sweet  enforcement,  joyously  compelled 
Like  laughing  children,  hurry  down  the  steeps, 
And  make  a  dimpled  chase  athwart  the  stones; 
Pine  woods  are  black  upon  the  heights,  the  slopes 
Are  green  with  pasture,  and  the  bearded  corn 
Fringes  the  blue  above  the  sudden  ridge: 
A  little  world  whose  round  horizon  cuts 
This  isle  of  hills  with  heaven  for  a  sea, 
Save  in  clear  moments  when  southwestward  gleams 
France  by  the  Rhine,  melting  anon  to  haze. 
The  monks  of  old  chose  here  their  still  retreat, 
And  called  it  by  the  Blessed  Vii-giu's  name, 
Sancta  Maria,  which  the  peasant's  tongue. 
Speaking  from  out  the  parent's  heart  that  turns 
All  loved  things  into  little  things,  has  made 
Sanct  Margen— Holy  little  Mary,  dear 
As  all  the  sweet  home  things  she  smiles  upon. 
The  children  and  the  cows,  the  apple-trees. 
The  cart,  the  plough,  all  named  with  that  caress 
Which  feigns  them  little,  easy  to  be  held, 
Familiar  to  the  eyes  and  hand  and  heart. 
What  though  a  queen?     She  puts  her  crown  away 
And  with  her  little  Boy  wears  common  clothes. 
Caring  for  common  wants,  remembering 
That  day  when  good  Saint  -Toseph  left  his  work 
To  marry  her  with  humble  trust  sublime. 
The  monks  are  gone,  their  shadows  fall  no  more 
Tall-frocked  and  cowled  athwart  the  evening  fields 
At  milking-time;  their  silent  corridors 
Are  turned  to  homes  of  bare-armed,  aproned  men 
Who  toil  for  wife  and  children.     But  the  bells 

176 


AGATHA.  177 

Pealing  on  liigli  from  two  quaint  convent  lowers, 

Still  ring  the  catholic  signals,  summoning 

To  s'rave  remembrance  of  the  laro-er  life 

That  bears  our  own,  like  perishable  fruit 

Upon  its  heaven-wide  branches.     At  their  sound 

The  sheplierd  boy  far  off  upon  the  hill. 

The  workers  with  the  saw  and  at  the  forge, 

The  triple  generation  round  the  hearth, — 

Grandames  and  mothers  and  the  flute-voiced  girls. — 

Fall  on  their  knees  and  send  forth  prayerful  cries 

To  the  kind  Mother  with  the  little  Boy, 

Who  pleads  for  lielpless  men  against  the  storm, 

Lightning  and  plagues  and  all  terrific  shapes 

Of  power  supreme. 

Within  the  pi-ettiest  hollows  of  these  hills. 

Just  as  yon  enter  it,  upon  the  slope 

Stands  a  low  cottage  neighbored  cheerily 

By  running  water,  which,  at  farthest  end 

Of  the  same  hollow,  turns  a  heavy  mill. 

And  feeds  the  })astures  for  the  miller's  cows, 

Blanchi  and  Xiigeli,  A'eilchen  and  the  rest. 

Matrons  with  faces  as  Griselda  mild, 

Coming  at  call.     And  on  the  farthest  height 

A  little  tower  looks  out  above  the  pines 

Where  mounting  you  will  find  a  sanctuary 

Open  and  still  ;  without,  the  silent  crowd, 

Of  heaven,  planted,  incense-minglino-  flowers; 

Within  the  altar  whei-e  the  Mother  sits 

'Mid  votive  tablets  hung  from  far-off  years 

By  peasants  succored  in  the  peril  of  fire, 

Fever,  or  flood.  avIio  thought  that  Mary's  love, 

"Willing  but  not  omnipotent,  had  stood 

Between  their  lives  and  that  dread  power  which  slew 

Their  neighbor  at  their  side.     The  chapel  bell 

Will  melt  to  gentlest  music  ere  it  reach 

That  cottage  on  the  slope,  whose  garden  gate 

Has  caught  the  rose-tree  boughs  and  stands  ajar  ; 

So  does  the  door,  to  let  the  sunbeams  in  ; 

For  in  the  slanting  sunbeams  angels  come 

An^l  visit  Agatha  who  dwells  within, — 

Old  Agatha,  whose  cousins  Kate  and  Nell 

Are  housed  by  lier  in  Love  and  Duty's  name, 

They  being  feeble,  with  small  withered  wits. 

And  she  believing  that  the  higher  gift 

Was  given  to  be  shared.     So  Agatha 


178  AGATHA. 

Shares  her  one  room^  all  neat  on  afternoons. 
As  if  some  memory  wei'e  sacred  there 
And  everything  within  the  four  low  walls 
An  honored  relic. 

One  long  summer's  day 
An  angel  entered  at  the  rose-hung  gate, 
With  skirts  pale  blue,  a  brow  to  quench  the  pearlj 
Hair  soft  and  blonde  as  infants',  plenteous 
As  hers  who  made  the  wavy  lengths  once  speak 
The  grateful  worship  of  a  rescued  soul. 
The  angel  paused  before  the  open  door 
To  give  good-day.     '•  Come  in,"  said  Agatha. 
I  followed  close,  and  watched  and  listened  there. 
The  angel  was  a  lady,  noble,  young, 
Taught  in  all  seemliness  that  fits  a  court, 
All  lore  that  shapes  the  mind  to  delicate  use. 
Yet  quiet,  lowly,  as  a  meek  white  dove 
That  with  its  presence  teaches  gentleness. 
Men  called  her  Countess  Linda;  little  girls 
In  Freiburg  town,  orphans  whom  she  caressed. 
Said  Mamma  Linda:  yet  her  years  were  few. 
Her  outward  beauties  all  in  budding  time. 
Her  virtues  the  aroma  of  the  plant 
That  dwells  in  all  its  being,  root,  stem,  leaf. 
And  waits  not  ripeness. 

"Sit,"  said  Agatha. 
Her  cousins  were  at  work  in  neighboring  homes 
But  yet  she  was  not  lonely;  all  things  round 
Seemed  filled  with  noiseless  yet  responsive  life. 
As  of  a  child  at  breast  that  gently  clings: 
Not  sunlight  only  or  the  breathing  flowers 
Or  the  swift  shadows  of  the  birds  and  bees. 
But  all  the  household  goods,  which,  polished  fair 
By  hands  that  cherished  them  for  service  done. 
Shone  as  with  glad  content.     The  wooden  beams 
Dark  and  yet  friendly,  easy  to  be  reached. 
Bore  three  white  crosses  for  a  speaking  sign* 
The  walls  had  little  pictures  hung  a-row. 
Telling  the  stories  of  Saint  Ursula, 
And  Saint  Elizabeth,  the  lowly  queen; 
And  on  the  bench  that  served  for  table  too. 
Skirting  the  wall  to  save  the  narrow  space. 
There  lay  the  Catholic  books,  inherited 
From  those  old  times  when  printing  still  was  young 
With  stout-limbed  promise,  like  a  sturdy  boy. 


I 


AGATHA.  179 

And  in  the  farthest  corner  stood  the  bed 
Where  o'er  the  pillow  hung  two  pictures  wreathed 
With  fresh-^ilucked  ivy:  one  the  Virgin's  death, 
And  one  her  flowering  tomb,  while  high  above 
She  smiling  bends  and  lets  her  girdle  down 
For  ladder  to  the  soul  that  cannot  trust 
In  life  which  outlasts  burial.     Agatha 
Sat  at  her  knitting,  aged,  upright,  slim. 
And  spoke  her  welcome  with  mild  dignity. 
She  kept  the  company  of  kings  and  queens 
And  mitred  saints  who  sat  below  the  feet 
Of  Francis  with  the  ragged  frock  and  wounds; 
And  Rank  for  her  meant  Duty,  various. 
Yet  equal  in  its  worth,  done  worthil}^ 
Command  was  service;  humblest  service  done 
By  willing  and  discerning  souls  was  glory. 
Fair  Countess  Linda  sat  upon  the  bench. 
Close  fronting  the  old  knitter,  and  they  talked 
With  sweet  antiphony  of  young  and  old. 

Agatha. 

You  like  our  valley,  lady?    I  am  glad 

You  thought  it  well  to  come  again.     But  rest — 

The  walk  is  long  from  Master  Michael's  inn. 

Countess  Linda. 
Yes,  but  no  walk  is  prettier. 

Agatha. 

It  is  true: 
There  lacks  no  blessing  here,  the  waters  all 
Have  virtues  like  the  garments  of  the  Lord, 
And  heal  much  sickness;  then,  the  crops  and  cows 
Flourish  past  speaking,  and  the  garden  flowers. 
Pink,  blue,  and  purple,  'tis  a  joy  to  see 
How  they  yield  honey  for  the  singing  bees. 
I  would  the  whole  world  were  as  good  a  home. 

Countess  Linda. 

And  you  are  well  off,  Agatha  ? — your  friends 
Left  you  a  certain  bread:  is  it  not  so  ? 


180  AGATHA. 

Agatha.  / 

Not  so  at  all,  dear  lady.     I  had  nought. 

Was  a  poor  orphan;  but  I  came  to  tend 

Here  in  this  house,  an  old  afflicted  pair, 

Who  wore  out  slowly;  and  the  last  who  died. 

Full  thirty  years  ago,  left  me  this  roof 

And  all  the  household  stuff.     It  was  great  wealthy 

And  so  I  had  a  home  for  Kate  and  Nell. 

Countess  Linda. 

But  how,  then,  have  you  earned  your  daily  bread 
These  thirty  years  ? 

Agatha. 

0,  that  is  easy  earning. 
We  help  the  neighbors,  and  our  bit  and  sup 
Is  never  failing:  they  have  work  for  us 
In  house  and  field,  till  sorts  of  odds  and  ends. 
Patching  and  mending,  turning  o^er  the  hay. 
Holding  sick  children, — there  is  always  work; 
And  they  are  very  good, — the  neighbors  are. 
Weigh  not  our  bits  of  work  with  weight  and  scale. 
But  glad  themselves  with  giving  us  good  shares 
Of  meat  and  drink;  and  in  the  big  farm-house 
When  cloth  comes  home  from  weaving,  the  good  wife 
Cuts  me  a  piece, — this  very  gown, — and  says: 
"  Here,  Agatha,  you  old  maid,  you  have  time 
To  pray  for  Hans  who  is  gone  soldiering: 
The  saints  might  help  him,  and  they  have  much  to  do. 
^Twere  well  they  were  besought  to  think  of  him." 
She  spoke  half  jesting,  but  I  pray,  I  pray 
For  poor  young  Hans.     I  take  it  much  to  heart 
That  other  people  are  worse  off  than  I, — 
I  ease  my  soul  with  praying  for  them  all. 


Countess  Linda. 

That  is  your  way  of  singing,  Agatha; 

Just  as  the  nightingales  pour  forth  sad  songs, 

And  when  they  reach  men^s  ears  they  make  men's 

hearts 
Feel  the  more  kindly. 


i 


AGATHA-  181 

Agatha. 

Nay,  I  cannot  sing: 
My  voice  is  hoarse,  and  oft  I  think  my  prayers 
Are  foolish,  feeble  things;  for  Christ  is  good 
Whether  I  pray  or  not, — the  Virgin's  heart 
Is  kinder  far  than  mine;  and  then  I  stop 
And  feel  I  can  do  nought  toward  helping  men. 
Till  out  it  comes,  like  tears  that  will  not  hold. 
And  I  must  pray  again  for  all  the  world. 
^Tis  good  to  me, — I  mean  the  neighbors  are: 
To  Kate  and  Nell  too.     I  have  money  saved 
To  go  on  pilgrimage  the  second  time. 

Countess  Linda. 

And  do  you  mean  to  go  on  pilgrimage 
With  all  your  years  to  carry,  Agatha  ? 

Agatha. 

The  years  are  light,  dear  lady:  'tis  my  sins 
Are  heavier  than  I  would.     And  I  shall  go 
All  the  way  to  Einsiedeln  with  that  load: 
I  need  to  work  it  off. 

Countess  Linda. 

What  sort  of  sins. 
Dear  Agatha?    I  think  they  must  be  small. 

Agatha. 

Nay,  but  they  may  be  greater  than  I  know; 

'Tis  but  dim  "light  I  see  by.     So  I  try 

All  ways  I  know  of  to  be  cleansed  and  pure. 

I  would  not  sink  where  evil  spirits  arc. 

There's  perfect  goodness  somewhere:  so  I  strive. 

Countess  Linda. 

You  were  the  better  for  that  pilgrimage 
You  made  before?    The  shrine  is  beautiful; 
And  then  you  saw  fresh  country  all  the  way. 


182  AGATHA. 


Agatha. 


Yes,  that  is  true.     And  ever  since  that  time 

The  world  seems  greater,  and  the  Holy  Church 

More  wonderful.     The  blessed  pictures  all. 

The  heavenly  images  with  books  and  wings. 

Are  company  to  me  through  the  day  and  night. 

The  time!  the  time!     It  never  seemed  far  back. 

Only  to  father's  father  and  his  kin 

That  lived  before  hira.     But  the  time  stretched  out 

After  that  j)ilgrimage:  I  seemed  to  see 

Far  back,  and  yet  I  knew  time  lay  behind. 

As  there  are  countries  lying  still  behind 

The  highest  mountains,  there  in  Switzerland. 

0,  it  is  great  to  go  on  pilgrimage! 

Countess  Linda. 

Perhaps  some  neighbors  will  be  pilgrims  too. 
And  you  can  start  together  in  a  band. 

Agatha. 

Not  from  these  hills:  people  are  busy  here. 

The  beasts  want  tendance.     One  who  is  not  missed 

Can  go  and  pra}^  for  others  who  must  work. 

I  owe  it  to  all  neighbors,  young  and  old ; 

For  they  are  good  past  thinking, — lads  and  girls 

Given  to  mischief,  merry  naughtiness. 

Quiet  it,  as  the  hedgehogs  smooth  their  spines. 

For  fear  of  hurting  poor  old  Agatha. 

'Tis  pretty:  why,  the  cherubs  in  the  sky 

Look  young  and  merry,  and  the  angels  play 

On  citherns,  lutes,  and  all  sweet  instruments. 

I  would  have  young  things  merry.     See  the  Lord! 

A  little  baby  playing  with  the  birds; 

And  how  the  Blessed  Mother  smiles  at  him. 

Countess  Linda. 

I  think  you  are  too  happy,  Agatha, 

To  care  for  heaven.     Earth  contents  you  well. 

Agatha. 

Nay,  nay,  I  shall  be  called,  and  I  shall  go 
Right  willingly.     I  shall  get  helpless,  blind. 


AGATHA.  183 

Be  like  an  old  stalk  to  be  plucked  away: 

The  garden  must  be  cleared  for  young  spring  plants. 

'Tis  home  beyond  the  grave,  the  most  are  there. 

All  those  we  pray  to,  all  the  Church's  lights, — 

And  jDoor  old  souls  are  welcome  in  their  rags: 

One  sees  it  by  the  pictures.     Good  Saint  Ann, 

The  Virgin's  mother,  she  is  very  old. 

And  had  her  troubles  with  her  husband  too. 

Poor  Kate  and  Nell  are  younger  far  than  I, 

But  they  will  have  this  roof  to  cover  them. 

I  shall  go  Avillingly;  and  willingness 

Makes  the  yoke  easy  and  the  burden  light. 

Countess  Linda. 

When  you  go  southward  in  your  pilgrimage, 

Come  to  see  me  in  Freiberg,  Agatha. 

Where  you  have  friends  you  should  not  go  to  inns. 

Agatha. 

Yes,  I  will  gladly  come  to  see  you,  lady. 
And  you  will  give  me  sweet  hay  for  a  bed. 
And  in  the  morning  I  shall  wake  betimes 
And  start  when  all  the  birds  begin  to  sing. 

Countess  Linda. 

Yon  wear  your  smart  clothes  on  the  pilgrimage. 
Such  pretty  clothes  as  all  the  women  here 
Keep  by  them  for  their  best:  a  velvet  cap 
And  collar  golden-broidered?    They  look  well 
On  old  and  young  alike. 

Agatha. 

Nay,  I  have  none, — 
Never  had  better  clothes  than  these  you  see. 
Good  clothes  are  pretty,  but  one  sees  them  best 
When  others  wear  them,  and  I  somehow  thought 
'Twas  not  worth  while.     I  had  so  many  things 
More  than  some  neighbors,  I  was  partly  shy 
Of  wearing  better  clothes  than  they,  and  now 
I  am  so  old  and  custom  is  so  strong 
'Twould  hurt  mo  sore  to  put  on  finery. 


184  AGATHA. 

Countess  Linda. 

Your  gray  hair  is  a  crown,  dear  Agatha. 

Shake  hands;  good-bye.     The  sun  is  going  down. 

And  I  must  see  the  glory  from  the  hill. 

I  stayed  among  those  hills;  and  oft  heard  more 

Of  Agatha.     I  liked  to  hear  her  name, 

As  that  of  one  half  graiidame  and  half  saint. 

Uttered  with  reverent  playfulness.     The  lads 

And  younger  men  all  called  her  mother,  aunt. 

Or  granny,  with  their  pet  diminutives. 

And  bade  their  lasses  and  their  brides  behave 

Right  well  to  one  who  surely  made  a  link 

'Twixt  faulty  folk  and  God  by  loving  both: 

Not  one  but  counted  service  done  by  her. 

Asking  no  pay  save  just  her  daily  bread. 

At  feasts  and  weddings,  when  they  passed  in  groups 

Along  the  vale,  and  the  good  country  wine, 

Being  vocal  in  them,  made  them  choir  along 

In  quaintly  mingled  mirth  and  piety. 

They  fain  must  jest  and  play  some  friendly  trick 

On  three  old  maids;  but  when  the  moment  came 

Always  they  bated  breath  and  made  their  sport 

Gentle  as  feather-stroke,  that  Agatha 

Might  like  the  waking  for  the  love  it  showed. 

Their  song  made  happy  music  'mid  the  hills. 

For  nature  tuned  their  race  to  harmony. 

And  poet  Hans,  the  tailor,  wrote  them  songs 

That  grew  from  out  their  life,  as  crocuses 

From  out  the  meadow's  moistness.     'Twas  his  song 

They  oft  sang,  wending  homeward  from  a  feast, — 

The  song  I  give  you.     It  brings  in,  you  see, 

Their  gentle  jesting  with  the  three  old  maids. 

Midnight  by  the  chapel  bell! 

Homeward,  homeward  all,  farewell! 

I  with  you,  and  you  with  me. 

Miles  are  short  with  company. 

Heart  of  Mary,  bless  the  way,     ' 
Keep  us  all  by  night  and  day! 

Moon  and  stars  at  feast  with  night 
Kow  have  drunk  their  fill  of  light. 


AGATHA.  185 

Home  they  hurry,  making  time 
Trot  apace,  like  merry  rhyme. 

Heart  of  Mary,  mystic  rose, 

Send  lis  all  a  siveet  repose! 

Swiftly  through  the  wood  down  hill. 
Run  till  you  can  hear  the  mill. 
Toni's  ghost  is  wandering  now, 
Shaped  just  like  a  snow-white  cow. 

Heart  of  Mary,  rnorning  star, 

Ward  off  danger,  near  or  far! 

Toni's  wagon  with  its  load 
Fell  and  crushed  him  in  the  road 
'Twixt  these  pine-trees.     Never  fear! 
Give  a  neighbor's  ghost  good  cheer. 

Holy  Bale,  our  God  and  Brother, 

Bind  us  fast  to  one  another! 

Hark!  the  mill  is  at  its  work, 
Now  we  pass  beyond  the  murk 
To  the  hollow,  where  the  moon 
Makes  her  silvery  afternoon. 

Good  Saint  "Joseph,  faithful  spouse. 

Help  us  all  to  Jceep  our  voivs! 

Here  the  three  old  maidens  dwell, 
Agatha  and  Kate  and  Nell; 
See,  the  moon  shines  on  the  thatch. 
We  will  go  and  shake  the  latch. 

Heart  of  Mary,  cup  of  joy. 

Give  us  mirth  without  alloy! 

Hush,  'tis  here,  no  noise,  sing  low, 

Eap  with  gentle  knuckles — so! 

Like  the  little  tapping  birds. 

On  the  door;  then  sing  good  words. 
Aleeh  Saint  Anna,  old  and  fair. 
Hallow  all  tlie  snoio-white  hair! 

Little  maidens  old,  swset  dreams! 

Sleep  one  sleep  till  morning  beams. 

Mothers  ye,  who  help  us  all, 

Quick  at  hand,  if  ill  befall. 
Holy  Gabriel,  lily-laden,  ^ 
Bless  the  aged  mother-maiden! 


186  AGATHA. 

Forward,  mount  the  broad  hillside 
Swift  as  soldiers  when  they  ride. 
See  the  two  towers  how  they  peep, 
Eound-capped  giants,  o'er  the  steep. 

Heart  of  Mary,  hy  thy  sorroiu, 

Keep  us  upright  through  the  7norrowl  I 

Now  they  rise  quite  suddenly  * 

Like  a  man  from  bended  knee. 

Now  Saint  Miirgen  is  in  sight. 

Here  the  roads  branch  off — good-night! 

Heart  of  Mary,  by  thy  grace. 

Give  us  with  the  saints  a  place! 


ARMGART. 


SCENE  I. 

A  Salon  lit  with  lamps  and  ornamented  with  green  plants. 
An  open  piano,  loith  many  scattered  sheets  of  music. 
Bronze  busts  of  Beethoven  and  Gluch  on  jjiUars  ojjposite 
each  other.  A  small  table  spread  with  supper.  To 
Fkaulein  Walpurga,  ivh,o  advances  with  a  slight  lame- 
7iess  of  gait  from  an  adjoiiiing  room,  enters  Graf 
DoRNBURG  at  the  opposite  door  in  a  traveling  dress. 

Graf. 
Good  morning,  Fraulein! 

Walpurga. 

What,  so  soon  returned? 
I  feared  your  mission  kept  you  still  at  Prague. 

Graf. 

But  now  arrived!     You  see  my  traveling  dress. 
I  hurried  from  the  panting,  roaring  steam 
Like  any  courier  of  embassy 
Who  hides  the  fiends  of  war  within  his  bag. 

Walpurga. 
You  know  that  Armgart  sings  to-night? 

Graf. 

Has  sung! 
^Tis  close  on  half-past  nine.     The  Orpheus 
Lasts  not  so  long.     Her  spirits — were  they  high? 
Was  Leo  confident? 

Walpurga. 

He  only  feared 
Some  tameness  at  beginning.     Let  the  house 
Once  ring,  he  said,  with  plaudits,  she  is  safe. 

187 


188  ARMGART. 

Graf. 
And  Armgart? 

Walpurga. 

She  was  stiller  than  her  wont. 
But  once,  at  some  such  trivial  word  of  mine, 
As  that  the  highest  prize  might  yet  be  won 
By  her  who  took  the  second — she  was  roused. 
"For  me,"  she  said,  "I  triumph  or  I  fail. 
I  never  strove  for  any  second  prize." 

Graf. 

Poor  human-hearted  singing-bird!     She  bears 

Caesar's  ambition  in  her  delicate  breast, 

And  nought  to  still  it  with  but  quivering  song; 

Walpurga. 

I  had  not  for  the  world  been  there  to-night; 
Unreasonable  dread  oft  chills  me  more 
Than  any  reasonable  hope  can  warm. 

Graf. 

You  have  a  rare  affection  for  your  cousin; 
As  tender  as  a  sister's. 

Walpurga. 

Nay,  I  fear 
My  love  is  little  more  than  what  I  felt 
For  happy  stories  when  I  was  a  child. 
She  fills  my  life  that  would  be  empty  else. 
And  lifts  my  nought  to  value  by  her  side. 

Graf. 

She  is  reason  good  enough,  or  seems  to  be. 
Why  all  were  born  whose  being  ministers 
To  her  completeness.     Is  it  most  her  voice 
Subdues  us?  or  her  instinct  exquisite. 
Informing  each  old  strain  with  some  new  grace 
Which  takes  our  sense  like  any  natural  good? 
Or  most  her  spiritual  energy 
That  sweeps  us  in  the  current  of  ner  song? 


ARMGAET.  189 

Walpuega. 

I  know  not.     Losing  either,  we  should  lose 
That  whole  we  call  our  Arnigart.     For  herself, 
She  often  wonders  what  her  life  had  been 
Without  that  voice  for  channel  to  her  soul. 
She  says,  it  must  have  leaped  tlirough  all  her  limbs — 
Made  her  a  Mgenad — made  her  snatch  a  brand 
And  fire  some  forest,  that  her  rage  might  mount 
In  crashing  roaring  flames  through  half  a  land. 
Leaving  lier  still  and  patient  for  a  while. 
"Poor  wretch!"  she  says,  of  any  murderess — 
"  The  world  was  cruel,  and  she  could  not  sing: 
I  carry  my  revenges  in  my  throat; 
I  love  in  singing,  and  am  loved  again/' 

Geaf. 

Mere  mood!     I  cannot  yet  believe  it  more. 
Too  much  ambition  has  unwomaned  her; 
But  only  for  a  while.     Her  nature  hides 
One  half  its  treasures  by  its  very  wealth. 
Taxing  the  hours  to  show  it. 

Walpuega. 

Hark!  she  comes. 

JSntei'  Leo  witJt  a  wreath  i7i  his  hand,  holding  the  door 
open  for  Aemgaet,  ivho  loears  a  furred  mantle  and  hood. 
She  is  follotved  hy  her  maid,  carrying  an  armful  of 
bouquet's. 

Leo. 

Place  for  the  queen  of  song! 

Geaf  {advancing  toward  Aemgaet,  ^vho  throws  off  her 
hood  and  maoitle,  and  shows  a  star  of  hrilliants  in  her 
hair.) 

A  triumph,  then. 
You  will  not  be  a  niggard  of  your  joy 
And  chide  the  eagerness  that  came  to  share  it. 

Aemgaet. 

0  kind!  you  hastened  your  return  for  me. 

1  would  you  had  been  there  to  hear  me  sing  I 


190  ARMGAET. 

Walpurga,  kiss  me;  never  tremble  more 

Lest  Armgart's  wings  should  fail  her.    She  has  found 

This  night  the  region  where  her  rapture  breathes — 

Pouring  her  passion  on  the  air  made  live 

With  human  heart-throbs.     Tell  them,  Leo,  tell  them 

How  I  outsang  your  hope  and  made  you  cry 

Because  Gluck  could  not  hear  me.     That  was  folly'i 

He  sang,  not  listened ;  every  linked  note 

Was  his  immortal  pulse  that  stirred  in  mine. 

And  all  my  gladness  is  but  part  of  him. 

Give  me  the  wreath. 

[She  crowns  the  bust  of  Gluck. 

Leo  {sardonically). 

Ay,  ay,  but  mark  you  this* 
It  was  not  part  of  him — that  trill  you  made 
In  spite  of  me  and  reason! 

Armgart. 

You  vere  wrong — 
Dear  Leo,  you  were  wrong;  the  house  was  held 
As  if  a  storm  were  listening  with  delight 
And  hushed  its  thunder. 

Leo. 

Will  you  ask  the  house 
To  teach  you  singing?    Quit  your  Orpheus,  then. 
And  sing  in  farces  grown  to  operas. 
Where  all  the  prurience  of  the  full-fed  mob 
Is  tickled  with  melodic  impudence; 
Jerk  forth  burlesque  bravuras,  square  your  arms 
Akimbo  with  a  tavern  wench's  grace. 
And  set  the  splendid  compass  of  your  voice. 
To  lyric  jigs.     Go  to  I  I  thought  you  meant 
To  be  an  artist — lift  your  audience 
To  see  your  vision,  not  trick  forth  a  show 
To  please  the  grossest  taste  of  grossest  numbers. 

Armgart  {taking  up  Leo's  hand  and  kissing  it) 

Pardon,  good  Leo,  I  am  penitent. 
I  will  do  penance;  sing  a  hundred  trills 
Into  a  deep-dng  grave,  then  burving  them 
As  one  did  Midas'  secret,  rid  mvself 


ARMGART.  "  191 

Of  naughty  exultation.     0  I  trilled 

At  nature's  prompting,  like  the  nightingales. 

Go  scold  them,  dearest  Leo. 

Leo. 

I  stop  my  ears. 
Nature  in  Gluck  inspiring  Orpheus, 
Has  done  with  nightingales.     Are  bird-beaks  lips? 

Graf. 

Truce  to  rebukes!     Tell  us — who  were  not  there — 
The  double  drama;  how  the  expectant  house 
Took  the  first  notes. 

Walpurga  {turning  from  her  occnjKdion  of  decking  the 
room  with  tlie  fiowers). 

Yes,  tell  us  all,  dear  Armgart. 
Did  you  feel  tremors?     Leo,  how  did  she  look? 
Was  there  a  cheer  to  greet  her? 

Leo. 

Not  a  sound. 
She  walked  like  Orpheus  in  his  solitude. 
And  seemed  to  see  nought  but  what  no  man  saw. 
'Twas  famous.     Not  the  Schroeder-Devrient 
Had  done  it  better.     But  your  blessed  public 
Had  never  any  judgment  in  cold  blood — 
Thinks  all  perhaps  were  better  otherwise. 
Till  rapture  brings  a  reason. 

Armgart  {scornfully). 

I  knew  that! 
The  women  whispered,  "Not  a  pretty  face!" 
The  men,  "Well,  well,  a  goodly  length  of  limb: 
She  bears  the  chiton."  —  It  were  all  the  same 
Were  I  the  Virgin  Mother  and  my  stage 
The  opening  heavens  at  tlie  Judgment-day: 
Gossips  would  peo]>,  jog  elbows,  rntc  the  })rice 
Of  such  a  woman  in  the  social  mart. 
What  were  the  drama  of  the  world  to  them. 
Unless  they  felt  the  hell-prong? 


193  AEMGAKT. 

Lko 

Peace,  now,  peace! 
I  hate  my  phrases  to  be  smothered  o'er 
With  sauce  of  paraphrase,  my  sober  tune 
Made  bass  to  rambling  trebles,  showering  down 
In  endless  demi-semi-quavers. 

Aemgaet  {taking  a  ho^i-hon  from  the  table,  uplifting  it 
before  nutting  it  into  her  mouth,  and  turning  away). 

Mum! 

Gkaf. 
*     Yes,  tell  us  all  the  glory,  leave  the  blame. 

Walpukga. 

You  first,  dear  Leo  —  what  you  saw  and  heard; 
Then  Armgart  —  she  must  tell  us  what  she  felt. 


I 


*o' 


Leo< 

Well!    The  first  notes  camt  clearly  firmly  forth. 

And  I  was  easy,  for  behind  those  rills 

I  knew  there  was  a  fountain,     I  could  see 

The  house  was  breathing  gently,  heads  were  still; 

Parrot  opinion  was  struck  meekly  mute. 

And  human  hearts  were  swelling.     Armgart  stood 

As  if  she  had  been  new-created  there 

And  found  her  voice  which  found  a  melody. 

The  minx!    Gluck  had  not  written,  nor  I  taught: 

Orpheus  was  Armgart,  Armgart  Orpheus. 

Well,  well,  all  through  the  scena  I  could  feel 

The  silence  tremble  now,  now  poise  itself 

With  added  weight  of  feeling,  till  at  last 

Delight  o'er-toppled  it.     The  final  note 

Had  happy  drowning  in  the  unloosed  roar 

That  surged  and  ebbed  and  ever  surged  again. 

Till  expectation  kept  it  pent  awhile 

Ere  Orpheus  returned.     Pfui!    He  was  changed: 

My  demi-god  was  j-jale,  had  downcast  eyes 

That  quivered  like  a  bride's  who  fain  would  send 

Backward  the  rising  tear. 


armgakt.  193 

Aemgart  {advancing,   hut  then  turning  away,  as  if  to 

chech  lier  speech). 

I  was  a  bride, 
Ag  nuns  are  at  their  spousals. 

Leo. 

Ay,  my  lady, 
That  moment  will  not  come  again:  applause 
May  come  and  plenty;  but  the  first,  first  draught! 

{S flaps  Ids  fingers.) 
Music  has  sounds  for  it  —  I  know  no  words. 
I  felt  it  once  myself  when  they  performed 
My  overture  to  Sintram.     Well!  'tis  strange. 
We  know  not  pain  from  pleasure  in  such  joy. 

Armgart  {turning  quickly). 

Oh,  pleasure  has  cramped  dwelling  in  our  souls. 
And  when  full  Being  comes  must  call  on  pain 
To  lend  it  liberal  space. 

Walpfrga. 

I  hope  the  house 
Kept  a  reserve  of  plaudits:  I  am  jealous 
Lest  they  had  dulled  themselves  for  coming  good 
That  should  have  seemed  the  better  and  the  best. 

Leo. 

No,  'twas  a  revel  where  they  had  but  quaffed 
Their  opening  cup,     I  thank  the  artist's  star. 
His  audience  keejDS  not  sober:  once  afire, 
They  flame  toward  climax,  though  his  merit  hold 
But  fairly  even. 

Armgart  {her  hand  on  Leo's  arm). 

Now,  now,  confess  the  truth: 
I  sang  still  better  to  the  very  end  — 
All  save  the  trill;  I  give  that  up  to  you, 
To  bite  and  growl  at.     Why,  you  said  yourself. 
Each  time  I  sang,  it  seemed  new  doors  were  oped 
That  you  might  hear  heaven  clearer. 


IS 


Leo  {shaking  his  finger). 

I  was  raving. 


194  ARMGAET, 


Armgart. 


I  am  not  glad  with  that  mean  vanity 

Which  knows  no  good  beyond  its  appetite 

Full  feasting  upon  praise!    I  am  only  glad, 

Being  praised  for  what  I  know  is  worth  the  praise; 

Glad  of  the  proof  that  I  myself  have  part 

In  what  I  worship!    At  the  last  applause  — 

Seeming  a  roar  of  tropic  winds  that  tossed 

The  handkerchiefs  and  many- colored  flowers. 

Falling  like  shattered  rainbows  all  around  — 

Think  you  I  felt  myself  a  prima  donna  ? 

No,  but  a  hapjjy  spiritual  star 

Such  as  old  Dante  saw,  wrought  in  a  rose 

Of  light  in  Paradise,  whose  only  self 

Was  consciousness  of  glory  wide-diffused. 

Music,  life,  power  —  I  moving  in  the  midst 

With  a  sublime  necessity  of  good. 

Leo  {with  a  shrug). 

I  thought  it  was  a,  prima  donna  came 
Within  the  side-scenes;  ay,  and  she  was  proud 
To  find  the  bouquet  from  the  royal  box 
Enclosed  a  jewel-case,  and  proud  to  wear 
A  star  of  brilliants,  quite  an  earthly  star. 
Valued  by  thalers.     Come,  my  lady,  own 
Ambition  has  five  senses,  and  a  self 
That  gives  it  good  warm  lodging  when  it  sinks 
Plump  down  from  ecstasy. 

Armgart. 

Own  it?  why  not? 
Am  I  a  sage  whose  words  must  fall  like  seed 
Silently  buried  toward  a  far-off  spring? 
I  sing  to  living  men  and  my  effect 
Is  like  the  summer's  sun,  that  ripens  corn 
Or  now  or  never.     If  the  world  brings  me  gifts. 
Gold,  incense,  myrrh  —  'twill  be  the  needful  sign 
That  I  have  stirred  it  as  the  high  year  stirs 
Before  I  sink  to  winter. 

Graf. 

Ecstasies 
Are  short  —  most  happily!    We  should  but  lose 
Were  Armgart  borne  too  commonly  and  long 


ARMGART.  195 

Out  of  the  self  that  charms  us.     Could  I  choose. 
She  were  less  apt  to  soar  beyond  the  reach 
Of  woman's  foibles,  innocent  vanities. 
Fondness  for  trifles  like  that  pretty  star 
Twinkling  beside  her  cloud  of  ebon  hair. 

Armgart  {talcing  out  the  gem  and  looking  at  it). 

This  little  star!    I  would  it  were  the  seed 

Of  a  whole  Milky  AVay,  if  such  bright  shimmer 

Were  the  sole  speech  men  told  their  rapture  with 

At  Armgart's  music.     Shall  I  turn  aside 

From  splendors  which  flash  out  the  glow  I  make. 

And  live  to  make,  in  all  the  chosen  breasts 

Of  half  a  CJontineut?    No,  may  it  come. 

That  splendor!    May  the  day  be  near  when  men 

Think  much  to  let  my  horses  draw  me  home. 

And  new  lands  welcome  me  upon  their  beach. 

Loving  me  for  my  fame.     That  is  the  truth 

Of  what  I  wish,  nay,  yearn  for.     Shall  I  lie? 

Pretend  to  seek  obscurity  —  to  sing 

In  hope  of  disregard?    A  vile  pretense! 

And  blasphemy  besides.     For  what  is  fame 

But  the  benignant  strength  of  One,  transformed 

To  joy  of  Many?    Tributes,  plaudits  come 

As  necessary  breathing  of  such  Joy; 

And  may  they  come  to  me! 

Graf. 

The  auguries 
Point  clearly  that  way.     Is  it  no  offense 
To  wish  the  eagle's  wing  may  find  repose. 
As  feebler  wnngs  do  in  a  quiet  nest? 
Or  has  the  taste  of  fame  already  turned 
The  Woman  to  a  Muse 

Leo  {going  to  the  table). 

Who  needs  no  supper? 
I  am  her  priest,  ready  to  eat  her  share 
Of  good  Walpurga's  offerings. 


Graf,  will  you  come? 


Walpurga. 

Armgart,  come. 


196  AEMGART. 


Graf. 


Thanks,  I  play  truant  here. 
And  must  retrieve  my  self -indulged  delay. 
But  will  the  Muse  receive  a  votary 
At  any  hour  to-morrow  ? 

Armgaet. 

Any  hour 
After  rehearsal,  after  twelve  at  noon. 


SCENE  II. 

The  same  salon,  mominif,  Akmgart  seated,  in  liei^  ton- 
net  and  wallcing  dress.  The  GtRAF  standing  near  her 
against  the  viano. 

Graf. 

Armgart,  to  many  minds  the  first  success 
Is  reason  for  desisting.     I  have  known 
A  man  so  versatile,  he  tried  all  arts. 
But  when  in  each  by  turns  he  had  achieved 
Just  so  much  mastery  as  made  men  say, 
"  He  could  be  king  here  if  he  would,"  he  threw 
The  lauded  skill  aside.     He  hates,  said  one. 
The  level  of  achieved  pre-eminence. 
He  must  be  conquering  still;  but  others  said 

Armgaet. 

The  truth,  I  hope:  he  had  a  meagre  soul. 
Holding  no  depth  where  love  could  root  itself. 
**  Could  if  he  would?"     True  greatness  ever  wills — 
It  lives  in  wholeness  if  it  live  at  all. 
And  all  its  strength  is  knit  with  constancy. 

'    Graf, 

He  used  to  say  himself  he  was  too  sane 

To  give  his  life  away  for  excellence 
Which  yet  must  stand,  an  ivory  statuette 


AEMGAET.  197 

Wrought  to  perfection  through  long  lonely  years. 

Huddled  m  the  mart  of  mediocrities. 

He  said,  the  very  finest  doing  wins 

The  admiring  only;  but  to  leave  undone, 

Promise  and  not  fulfill,  like  buried  youth. 

Wins  all  the  envious,  makes  them  sigh  your  name 

As  that  fair  Absent,  blameless  Possible, 

Which  could  alone  impassion  them;  and  thus. 

Serene  negation  has  free  gift  of  all, 

Panting  achievement  struggles,  is  denied. 

Or  wins  to  lose  again.     What  say  you,  Armgart? 

Truth  has  rough  flavors  if  we  bite  it  through; 

I  think  this  sarcasm  came  from  out  its  core 

Of  bitter  irony. 

Akmgabt. 

It  is  the  truth 
Mean  souls  select  to  feed  upon.     What  then? 
Their  meanness  is  a  truth,  which  I  will  spurn. 
The  praise  I  seek  lives  not  in  envious  breath 
Using  my  name  to  blight  another's  deed. 
I  sing  for  love  of  song  and  that  renown 
Which  is  the  spreading  act,  the  world-wide  share. 
Of  good  that  I  was  born  with.     Had  I  failed — 
Well,  that  had  been  a  truth  most  pitiable. 
I  cannot  bear  to  think  what  life  would  be 
With  high  hope  shrunk  to  endurance,  stunted  aims 
Like  broken  lances  ground  to  eating-knives, 
A  self  sunk  down  to  look  with  level  eyes 
At  low  achievement,  doomed  from  day  to  day 
To  distaste  of  its  consciousness.     But  I 

Graf. 

Have  won,  not  lost,  in  your  decisive  throw. 

And  I  too  glory  in  this  issue;  yet. 

The  public  verdict  has  no  potency 

Tasway  my  judgment  of  what  Armgart  is: 

My  pure  delight  in  her  would  be  but  sullied. 

If  it  o'erflowed  with  mixture  of  men's  praise. 

And  had  she  failed,  I  should  have  said,  "  The  pearl 

Eemams  a  pearl  for  me,  reflects  the  light 

With  the  same  fitness  that  first  charmed  my  gaze — 

Is  worth  as  fine  a  setting  now  as  then.'' 


198  AKMGART. 

Aemgaet  (rismg). 

Oh,  you  are  good!     But  why  will  you  rehearse 
The  talk  of  cynics,  who  with  insect  eyes 
Explore  the  secrets  of  the  rubbish-heap? 
I  hate  your  epigrams  and  jaointed  saws 
Whose  narrow  truth  is  but  broad  falsity. 
Confess  your  friend  was  shallow, 

Graf. 

I  confess 
Life  .is  not  rounded  in  an  epigram. 
And  saying  aught,  we  leave  a  world  unsaid. 
I  quoted,  merely  to  shape  forth  my  thought 
That  high  success  has  terrors  when  achieved— 
Like  preternatural  spouses  whose  dire  love 
Hangs  perilous  on  slight  observances: 
Whence  it  were  possible  that  Armgart  crowned 
Might  turn  and  listen  to  a  pleading  voice. 
Though  Armgart  striving  in  the  race  was  deaf. 
You  said  you  dared  not  think  what  life  had  been 
Without  the  stamp  of  eminence;  have  you  thought 
How  you  will  bear  the  poise  of  eminence 
With  dread  of  sliding?     Paint  the  future  out 
As  an  unchecked  and  glorious  career, 
'Twill  grow  more  strenuous  by  the  very  love 
You  bear  to  excellence,  the  very  fate 
Of  human  powers,  which  tread  at  every  step 
On  possible  verges. 

Armgart. 

I  accept  the  peril. 
I  choose  to  walk  high  with  sublimer  dread 
Rather  than  crtiwl  in  safety.     And,  besides, 
I  am  an  artist  as  you  are  noble: 
I  ought  to  bear  the  burden  of  my  rank. 

Graf. 

Such  parallels,  dear  Armgart,  are  but  snares  . 
To  catchthe  mind  with  seeming  argument — ' 
Small  baits  of  likeness  ^mid  disparity. 
Men  rise  the  higher  as  their  task  is  high, 
Thii  task  being  well  achieved.     A  woman's  rank 
Lies  in  the  fullness  of  her  womanhood: 
Therein  alone  she  is  royal. 


ARMGART       "  199 


Armgart. 


Yes,  I  know 
The  oft-taught  Gospel:  "Woman,  thy  desire 
Shall  be  that  all  superlatives  on  earth 
Belong  to  men,  save  the  one  highest  kind — 
To  be  a  mother.     Thou  shalt  not  desire 
To  do  aught  best  save  pure  subservience: 
Nature  has  willed  it  so!''     0  blessed  Naturel 
Let  her  be  arbitress;  she  gave  me  voice 
Such  as  she  only  gives  a  woman  child. 
Best  of  its  kind,  gave  me  ambition  too, 
That  sense  transcendent  which  can  taste  the  joy 
Of  swaying  multitudes,  of  being  adored 
For  such  achievement,  needed  excellence. 
As  man's  best  art  must  wait  for,  or  be  dumb. 
Men  did  not  say,  when  I  had  sung  last  night, 

"  'Twas  good,  nay,  wonderful,  considering 
She  is  a  woman" — and  then  turn  to  add, 

*'  Tenor  or  baritone  had  sung  her  songs 
Better,  of  course:  she's  but  a  woman  spoiled." 
I  beg  your  pardon,  Graf,  you  said  it. 

Graf. 

No! 
How  should  I  say  it,  Armgart?    I  who  own 
The  magic  of  your  nature-given  art 
As  sweetest  effluence  of  your  womanhood 
Which,  being  to  my  choice  the  best,  must  find 
The  best  of  utterance.     But  this  I  say: 
Your  fervid  youth  beguiles  you;  you  mistake 
A  strain  of  lyric  j)assion  for  a  life 
Which  in  the  spending  is  a  chronicle 
With  ugly  pages.     Trust  me,  Armgart,  trust  me; 
Ambition  exquisite  as  yours  which  soars 
Toward  something  quintessential  you  call  fame, 
Is  not  robust  enough  for  this  gross  world 
Whose  fame  is  dense  with  false  and  foolish  breath. 
Ardor,  a-twin  with  nice  refining  thought, 
Prepares  a  double  pain.     Pain  had  been  saved. 
Nay,  purer  glory  readied,  had  you  been  throned 
As  woman  only,  holding  all  your  art 
As  attribute  to  that  dear  sovereignty — 
Concentering  your  power  in  home  delights 
Which  penetrate  and  purify  the  world. 


200  '         ARMGART. 

Armgart. 

What!  leave  the  opera  with  my  part  ill-sung 

While  I  was  warbling  in  a  drawing-room? 

Sing  in  the  chimney-corner  to  inspire 

My  "husband  reading  news?     Let  the  world  hear 

My  music  only  in  his  morning  speech 

Less  stammering  than  most  honorable  men's? 

No!  tell  me  that  my  song  is  poor,  my  art 

The  piteous  feat  of  weakness  aping  strength — 

That  were  fit  proem  to  your  argument. 

Till  then,  I  am  an  artist  by  my  birth — 

By  the  same  warrant  that  I  am  a  woman: 

Nay,  in  the  added  rarer  gift  I  see 

Supreme  vocation:  if  a  conflict  comes. 

Perish — no,  not  the  woman,  but  the  joys 

Which  men  make  narrow  by  their  narrowness. 

Oh,  I  am  happy!     The  great  masters  write 

For  Avomea's  voices,  and  great  Music  wants  me! 

I  need  not  crush  myself  within  a  mold 

Of  theory  called  Nature:  I  have  room  j 

To  breathe  and  grow  unstunted.  * 

Graf. 

Armgart,  hear  me. 
I  meant  not  that  our  talk  should  hurry  on 
To  such  collision.     Foresight  of  the  ills 
Thick  shadowing  your  path,  drew  on  my  speech 
Beyond  intention.     True,  I  came  to  ask 
A  great  renunciation,  but  not  this 
Toward  which  my  words  at  first  perversely  strayed. 
As  if  in  memory  of  their  earlier  suit. 

Forgetful 

Armgart,* do  you  remember  too?  the  suit 
Had  but  postponement,  was  not  quite  disdained — 
Was  told  to  wait  and  learn — what  it  has  learned — 
A  more  submissive  speech. 

Armgart  {with  some  agitation). 

Then  it  forgot 
Its  lesson  cruelly.     As  I  remember, 
'Twas  not  to  speak  save  to  the  artist  crowned, 
Nor  speak  to  her  of  casting  off  lier  crown. 


ARMGART.  201 

Graf. 

Nor  will  it,  Armgart.     I  come  not  to  seek 

Any  renunciation  save  the  wife's, 

Which  turns  away  from  other  possible  love 

Future  and  worthier,  to  take  his  love 

Who  asks  the  name  of  husband.     He  who  sought 

Armgart  obscure,  and  heard  her  answer,  ''Wait" — ■ 

May  come  without  suspicion  now  to  seek 

Armgart  applauded. 

Armgart  {turning  toiuard  Mm). 

Yes,  without  suspicion 
Of  aught  save  what  consists  with  faithfulness 
In  all  expressed  intent.     Forgive  me,  Graf — 
I  am  ungrateful  to  no  soul  that  loves  me — 
To  you  most  grateful.     Yet  the  best  intent 
Grasps  but  a  living  present  which  may  grow 
Like  any  unfledged  bird.     You  are  a  noble. 
And  have  a  high  career;  just  now  you  said 
'Twas  higher  far  than  aught  a  woman  seeks 
Beyond  mere  womanhood.     You  claim  to  be 
More  than  a  husband,  but  could  not  rejoice 
That  I  were  more  than  wife.     What  follows,  then? 
You  choosing  me  with  such  persistency 
As  is  but  stretched-out  rashness,  soon  must  find 
Our  marriage  asks  concessions,  asks  resolve 
To  share  renunciation  or  demand  it. 
Either  we  both  renounce  a  mutual  ease. 
As  in  a  nation's  need  both  man  and  wife 
Do  public  services,  or  one  of  us 
Must  yield  that  something  else  for  which  each  lives 
Besides  the  other.     Men  are  reasoners: 
That  premise  of  superior  claims  perforce 
Urges  conclusion — "  Armgart,  it  is  you." 

Graf. 

But  if  I  say  I  have  considered  this 
With  strict  prevision,  counted  all  the  cost 
Which  that  great  good  of  loving  you  demands — 
Questioned  my  stores  of  patience,  half  resolved 
To  live  resigned  without  a  bliss  whose  threat 
Touched  you  as  well  as  me — and  finally. 
With  impetus  of  undivided  will 


202  ARMGART. 

Eeturned  to  say,  "  You  shall  be  free  as  now;  | 

Only  accept  the  refuge,  shelter,  guard,  1 

My  love  will  give  your  freedom  " — then  your  words  ^ 
Are  hard  accusal. 

Armgart.     • 

Well,  I  accuse  myself. 
My  love  would  be  accomplice  of  your  wiil. 

Graf. 
Again — my  will? 

Armgart. 

Oh,  your  unspoken  will. 
Your  silent  tolerance  would  torture  me. 
And  on  that  rack  I  should  deny  the  good 
I  yet  believed  in. 

Graf. 

Then  I  am  the  man 
Whom  you  would  love? 

Armgart. 

Whom  I  refuse  to  love! 
No;  I  will  live  alone  and  pour  my  pain 
With  passion  into  music,  where  it  turns 
To  what  is  best  within  my  better  self. 
I  will  not  take  for  husband  one  who  deems 
The  thing  my  soul  acknowledges  as  good — 
The  thing  I  hold  worth  striving,  suffering  for. 
To  be  a  thing  dispensed  with  easily, 
Or  else  the  idol  of  a  mind  infirm. 

Graf. 

Armgart,  you  are  ungenerous;  you  strain 
My  thought  beyond  its  mark.     Our  difference 
Lies  not  so  deep  as  love — as  union 
Through  a  mysterious  fitness  that  transcends 
Formal  agreement.. 

Armgart. 

It  lies  deep  enough 
To  chafe  the  union.     If  many  a  man 


ARMGART.  20o 

Refrains,  degraded,  from  the  utmost  right, 
Because  the  pleadings  of  his  wife's  small  fears 
Are  little  serpents  biting  at  his  heel, — 
How  shall  a  woman  keep  her  steadfastness 
Beneath  a  frost  within  her  husband's  eyes 
Where  coldness  scorches?     Graf,  it  is  your  sorrow 
That  you  love  Armgart.     Nay,  it  is  her  sorrow- 
That  she  may  not  love  you. 

Graf. 

Woman,  it  seems. 
Has  enviable  power  to  love  or  not 
According  to  her  will. 

ArM(4ART. 

She  has  the  will — 
I  have — who  am  one  woman — not  to  take 
Disloyal  pledges  that  divide  her  will. 
The  man  who  marries  me  must  wed  my  Art — 
Honor  and  cherish  it,  not  tolerate. 

Graf. 

The  man  is  yet  to  come  whose  theory 

Will  weigh  as  nought  with  you  against  his  love. 

Armgart. 
Whose  theory  will  plead  beside  his  love. 

Graf. 

Himself  a  singer,  then?  who  knows  no  life 
Out  of  the  opera  books,  where  tenor  parte 
Are  found  to  suit  him? 

Armgart. 

You  are  bitter,  Graf. 
Forgive  me;  seek  the  woman  you  deserve. 
All  grace,  all  goodness,  who  has  not  yet  found 
A  meaning  in  her  life,  nor  any  end 
Beyond  fulfilling  yours.     The  type  abounds. 

Graf. 
And  happily,  for  the  world. 


204  ARMGART. 

Armgart. 

Yes,  liappily. 
Let  it  excuse  me  that  my  kind  is  rare: 
Commonness  is  its  own  security. 

Graf. 

Armgart,  I  would  with  all  my  soul  I  knew 
The  man  so  rare  that  he  could  make  your  life 
As  woman  sweet  to  you,  as  artist  safe. 

Armgart. 

Oh,  I  can  live  unmated,  but  n6t  live 
"Without  the  bliss  of  singing  to  the  world. 
And  feeling  all  my  world  respond  to  me. 

Graf. 
May  it  be  lasting.     Then,  we  two  must  part? 

Armgart. 
I  thank  you  from  my  heart  for  all.     Farewell! 


SCENE  III. 
A  Year  Later. 


The  same  Salon.  Walpurga  is  standing  looking  toward 
the  windoio  with  an  air  of  uneasiness.  Doctor 
Grahn". 

Doctor. 

Where  is  my  patient,  Fraulein? 

Walpurga. 

Fled!  escaped  J 
Gone  to  rehearsal.     Is  it  dangerous? 

Doctor. 

No,  no;  her  throat  is  cured.     I  only  came 
To  hear  her  try  her  voice.     Had  she  yet  sung? 


ARMGART.  205 

Walpurga. 

No;  she  had  meant  to  wait  for  you.     She  said, 
*'  The  Doctor  has  a  right  to  my  first  song." 
Her  gratitude  was  full  of  little  plans, 
But  all  were  swept  away  like  gathered  flowers 
By  sudden  storm.     She  saw  this  opera  bill — 
It  was  a  wasp  to  sting  her:  she  turned  pale. 
Snatched  up  her  hat  and  mufflers,  said  in  haste, 
*  I  go  to  Leo — to  rehearsal — none 
Shall  sing  Fidelio  to-night  but  me!' 
Then  rushed  down-stairs. 

Doctor  {looking  at  his  watch). 

And  this,  not  long  ago? 

Walpurga. 
Barely  an  hour. 

Doctor. 

I  will  come  again, 
Returning  from  Charlottenburg  at  one. 

Walpurga. 

Doctor,  I  feel  a  strange  presentiment. 
Are  you  quite  easy? 

Doctor. 

She  can  take  no  harm. 
'Twas  time  for  her  to  sing:  her  throat  is  well. 
It  was  a  fierce  attack,  and  dangerous; 
I  had  to  use  strong  remedies,  but — well! 
At  one,  dear  Fraulein,  we  shall  meet  again. 


20G  ARMGART. 

SCENE  IV. 

Two  Hours  Later. 

Walpurga  starts  up,  looking  toward  the  door.  A-Rmgart 
enters,  followed  hy  Leo.  She  throws  hi,r.^elf  on  a 
chair  which  stands  loith  its  hack  toward  the  door, 
speechless,  not  seeming  to  see  atigthing.  Walpurga 
casts  a  questioning  terrified  look  at  Leo.  He  shrugs 
his  shoulders,  and  lifts  up  his  hands  behind  Armgart, 
who  sits  like  a  helpless  image,  while  Walpurga  takes 
off  her  hat  and  mantle. 

Walpurga. 

Armgart,    dear   Armgart   {k^ieeling  and  taking   her 

hands),  only  speak  to  me. 
Your  poor  Walpurga.     Oh,  your  hands  are  cold. 
Clasp  mine,  and  warm  them!     I  will  kiss  them  warm. 

(Armgart  looks  at  her  an  instaiit,  then  draws  away  her 
hands,  and,  turning  aside,  buries  her  face  against  the 
back  of  the  chair,  Walpurga  rising  and  standing  near.) 

(Doctor  Grahn  enters.) 

Doctor. 

News!  stirring  news  to-day!  wonders  come  thick. 

Armgart  {starting  up  at  the  first  sound  of  his  voice,  and 
speaking  vehemently. ) 

Yes,  thick,  thick,  thick!  and  you  have  murdered  it! 

Murdered  my  voice — poisoned  the  soul  in  me. 

And  kept  me  living. 

You  never  told  me  that  your  cruel  cures 

Were  clogging  films — a  mouldy,  deadening  blight — 

A  lava-mud  to  crust  and  bury  me. 

Yet  hold  me  living  in  a  deep,  deep  tomb. 

Crying  unheard  forever!     Oh,  your  cures 

Are  deviPs  triumphs:  you  can  rob,  maim,  slay. 

And  keep  a  hell  on  the  other  side  your  cure 

Where  you  can  see  your  victim  quivering 


ARMGAKT.  207 

Between  the  teeth  of  torture — see  a  soul 
Made  keen  by  loss — all  anguish  with  a  good 
Once  known  and  gone!     {Turns  and  sinks  back  on 
her  chair.) 

0  misery,  misery! 
You  might  have  killed  me,  might  have  let  me  sleep 
After  my  happy  day  and  wake — not  here! 
In  some  new  unremembered  world — not  here. 
Where  all  is  faded,  flat — a  feast  broke  off — 
Banners  all  meaningless — exulting  words 
Dull,  dull — a  drum  that  lingers  in  the  air 
Beating  to  melody  which  no  man  hears. 

Doctor  {after  a  moment's  silence). 

A  sudden  check  has  shaken  you,  poor  child! 
All  things  seem  livid,  tottering  to  your  sense, 
From  inward  tumult.     Stricken  by  a  threat 
You  see  your  terrors  only.     Tell  me,  Leo: 
^Tis  not  such  utter  loss. 

(Leo,  with  a  shrug,  goes  quietly  out. ) 

The  freshest  bloom 
Merely,  has  left  the  fruit;  the  fruit  itself - 

Armgart. 

Is  i-uined,  withered,  is  a  thing  to  hide 

Away  from  scorn  or  pity.     Oh,  you  stand 

And  look  compassionate  now,  but  when  Death  came 

With  mercy  in  liis  hands,  you  hindered  him. 

I  did  not  choose  to  live  and  have  your  pity. 

You  never  told  me,  never  gave  me  choice 

To  die  a  singer,  lightning-struck,  unmaimed. 

Or  live  what  you  would  make  me  with  your  cures — 

A  self  accursed  with  consciousness  of  change, 

A  mind  that  lives  in  nought  but  members  lopped, 

A  power  turned  to  pain — as  meaningless 

As  letters  fallen  asunder  that  once  made 

A  hymn  of  ra]>ture.     0,  I  liad  meaning  once, 

Like  day  and  sweetest  air.     What  am  I  now? 

The  millionth  woman  in  su])erfluous  herds. 

Why  should  1  be,  do,  tliink?     'Tis  thistle-seed, 

^hiil  grows  and  grows  to  feed  the  rubbish-heap. 

Leave  me  alouo! 


208  AKMGART. 


Doctor. 


Well,  I  will  come  again; 
Send  for  me  when  you  will,  though  but  to  rate  me. 
That  is  medicinal — a  letting  blood. 

Armgart. 

Oh,  there  is  one  physician,  only  one, 

Who  cures  and  never  spoils.     Him  I  shall  send  for; 

He  comes  readily. 

Doctor  {to  Walpurga). 

One  word,  dear  Fraulein. 


SCENE  V. 
Armgart,  Walpurga. 


Armgart. 
Walpurga,  have  you  walked  this  morning? 

Walpurga. 

No. 

Armgart. 
Go,  then,  and  walk;  I  wish  to  be  alone. 

Walpurga. 
I  will  not  leave  you. 

Armgart. 

Will  not,  at  my  wish  ? 

Walpurga. 

Will  not,  because  you  wish  it.     Say  no  more. 
But  take  this  draught. 


AKMGART.  209 


Armgart. 


The  Doctor  gave  it  you? 
It  is  an  anodyne.     Put  it  away. 
He  cured  me  of  my  voice,  and  now  he  wants 
To  cure  me  of  my  vision  and  resolve — 
Drug  me  to  sleep  that  I  may  wake  again 
Without  a  purpose,  abject  as  the  rest 
To  bear  the  yoke  of  life.     He  shall  not  cheat  me 
Of  that  fresh  strength  which  anguish  gives  the  soul. 
The  inspiration  of  revolt,  ere  rage 
Slackens  to  faltering.     Now  I  see  the  truth. 

Walpurga  {setting  down  the  glass). 

Then  you  must  see  a  future  in  your  reach. 
With  happiness  enough  to  make  a  dower 
For  two  of  modest  claims. 

Armgart. 

Oh,  you  intone 
That  chant  of  consolation  wherewith  ease 
Makes  itself  easier  in  the  sight  of  pain. 

Walpurga. 
No;  I  would  not  console  you,  but  rebuke.     . 

Armgart. 

That  is  more  bearable.     Forgive  me,  dear. 
Say  what  you  will.     But  now  I  want  to  write. 

{She  rises  axd  mores  toward  a  table.) 

Walpurga. 

I  say  then,  you  are  simply  fevered,  mad; 
You  cry  aloud  at  horrors  that  would  vanish 
If  you  would  change  the  liglit.  tlirow  into  shade 
The  loss  you  aggrandize,  and  let  day  fall 
On  good  remaining,  nay  on  good  refused 
Which  may  be  gain  now.     Did  you  not  reject 
A  woman's  lot  more  brilliant,  as  some  held. 
Than  any  singer's?     It  may  still  be  yours. 
Graf  Dornberg  loved  you  well. 
14 


810  ARMGART. 

Armgart. 

Not  me,  not  me. 
He  loved  one  well  who  was  like  me  m  all 
Save  in  a  voice  which  made  that  All  unlike 
As  diamond  is  to  charcoal.     Oh,  a  man's  love! 
Think  yon  he  loves  a  woman's  inner  self 
Aching  with  loss  of  loveliness? — as  mothers 
Cleave  to  the  palpitating  pain  that  dwells 
Within  their  mi^formed  oflfsiDring? 

Walpurga. 

But  the  Graf 
Chose  you  as  simple  Armgart — had  preferred 
That  you  should  never  seek  for  any  fame 
But  such  as  matrons  have  who  rear  great  sons 
And  therefore  you  rejected  him;  but  now 

Armgart. 

Ay,  now — now  he  would  see  me  as  I  am. 

{kSlie  takes  uj)  a  hand-mirror. 
Eusset  and  songless  as  a  missel-thrush. 
An  ordinary  girl — a  plain  brown  girl, 
Who,  if  some  meaning  flasli  from  out  her  words. 
Shocks  as  a  disproportioned  thing — a  Will 
That,  like  an  arm  astretch  and  broken  off. 
Has  nought  to  hurl — the  torso  of  a  soul. 
I  sang  him  into  love  of  me:  my  song 
Was  consecration,  lifted  me  apart 
From  the  crowd  chiseled  like  me,  sister  forms. 
But  empty  of  divineness.     Nay,  my  charm 
Was  half  that  I  could  win  fame  yet  renounce! 
A  wife  with  glory  possible  absorbed 
Into  her  husband's  actual. 

Walpurga. 

For  shame! 
Armgart,  you  slander  him.     What  would  you  say 
If  now  ho  came  to  you  and  asked  again 
That  you  would  be  his  wife? 

Armgart. 

No,  and  thrice  no! 
It  would  be  pitying  constancy,  not  love, 
That  brouglit  him  to  me  now.     I  will  not  be 


ARMGART.  211 

A  pensioner  in  marriage.     Sacraments 
Are  not  to  feed  the  paupers  of  the  world. 
If  he  were  generous — I  am  generous  too. 

Walpurga. 
Proud,  Armgart,  but  not  generous. 

Armgart. 

Say  no  more. 
He  will  not  know  until — 

Walpurga. 

He  knows  already. 

Armgart  {quickly). 
Is  he  come  back? 

Walpurga. 

Yes,  and  will  soon  be  here. 
The  Doctor  had  twice  seen  him  and  would  go 
From  hence  again  to  see  him. 

Armgart. 

Well,  he  knows. 
It  is  all  one. 

Walpurga. 

What  if  he  were  outside? 
I  hear  a  footstep  in  the  ante-room. 

Armgart  {raising  herself  and  assuming  calmness). 

Why  let  him  come,  of  course.     I  shall  behave 
Like  what  I  am,  a  common  personage 
Who  looks  for  nothing  but  civility. 
I  shall  not  play  the  fallen  heroine. 
Assume  a  tragic  part  and  throw  out  cues 
For  a  beseeching  lover. 

Walpurga. 

Some  one  raps. 

{Goes  to  the  door.) 
A  letter— from  the  Graf. 


213  ARMGAET. 

Armgart. 


Then  open  it. 
(Walpurga  still  offers  it.) 
Nay,  my  head  swims.     iRead  it.     I  cannot  see. 

(Walpurga  o/je«5  it,  reads  and  pauses.) 
Read  it.     Have  done!     No  matter  what  it  is. 


Walpurga  {reads  in  a  loiv,  liesitating  voice). 

"  I  am  deeply  moved — my  heart  is  rent,  to  hear  of  your 
illness  and  its  cruel  results,  just  now  communicated  to 
me  by  Dr.  Grahn.  But  surely  it  is  possible  that  this 
result  may  not  be  permanent.  For  youth  such  as  yours, 
Time  may  hold  in  store  something  more  than  resignation: 
who  shall  say  that  it  does  not  hold  renewal?  I  have  not 
dared  to  ask  admission  to  you  in  the  hours  of  a  recent 
shock,  but  I  cannot  depart  on  a  long  mission  without 
tendering  my  sympathy  and  my  farewell.  I  start  this 
evening  for  the  Caucasus,  and  thence  I  proceed  to  India, 
where  I  am  intrusted  by  the  Government  with  business 
which  may  be  of  long  duration." 

(Walpurga  sits  down  dejectedly.) 

Armgart  {after  a  slight  shudder,  hitterly). 

The  Graf  has  much  discretion.     I  am  glad. 

He  spares  us  both  a  pain,  not  seeing  me. 

What  I  like  least  is  that  consoling  hope — 

That  empty  cup,  so  neatly  ciphered  "Time/' 

Handed  me  as  a  cordial  for  despair. 

{Sloioly  and  dreamily)  Time — what  a  word  to  fling  as 

Charity! 
Bland  neutral  word  for  slow,  dull-beating  pain — 
Days,  months,  and  years! — If  I  would  wait  for  them. 

{She  takes  up  her  hat  and  puts  it  on,  then  ivraps  her 
mantle  round  her.  (Walpurga  leaves  the  room.) 

Why,  this  is  but  beginning.     Walp.  re-enters.)     Kiss 

me,  dear. 
I  am  going  now — alone — out — for  a  walk. 
Say  you  will  never  wouud  me  any  more 
With  such  cajolery  as  nurses  use 
To  patients  amorous  of  a  crippled  life. 
Flatter  the  blind:  I  see. 


i 


ARMGAKT.  'il3 

Walpurga. 

Well,  I  was  wrong, 
fn  haste  to  soothe,  I  snatched  at  flickers  merely. 
Believe  me,  I  will  flatter  yon  no  more. 

Armgart. 

Bear  witness,  I  am  calm.     I  read  my  lot 
As  soberly  as  if  it  were  a  tale 
Writ  by  a  creeping  feuilletonist  and  called 
''The  Woman's  Lot:  a  Tale  of  Everyday": 
A  middling  woman's,  to  impress  the  world 
With  high  superfluonsness;  her  thoughts  a  crop 
Of  chick-weed  errors  or  of  pot-herb  facts. 
Smiled  at  like  some  child's  drawing  on  a  slate. 

'Genteel?"     *'  0  yes,  gives  lessons;  not  so  good 
As  any  man's  would  be,  but  cheaper  far." 

'Pretty?"     "No;  yet  she  makes  a  figure  fit 
For  good  society.     Poor  thing,  she  sews 
Both  late  and  early,  turns  and  alters  all 
To  suit  the  changing  mode.     Some  widower 

Might  do  Avell,  marrying  her:  but  in  these  days! • 

Well,  she  can  somewhat  eke  her  narrow  gains 

■  By  writing,  just  to  furnish  her  with  gloves 
And  droschkies  in  the  rain.     They  print  her  things 
Often  for  charity." — Oh,  a  dog's  life! 
A  harnessed  dog's,  that  draws  a  little  cart 
Voted  a  nuisance!     I  am  going  now. 

Walpurga. 
Not  now,  the  door  is  locked. 

Armgart. 

Give  me  the  key! 

Walpurga. 

Locked  on  the  outside.     Gretchen  has  the  key: 
She  is  gone  on  errands. 

Armgart. 

What,  you  dare  to  keep  me 
Your  prisoner? 


214  AKMGART. 

Walpurga. 

And  have  I  not  been  yours? 
Your  wish  has  been  a  bolt  to  keep  me  in. 
Perhaps  that  meddling  woman  whom  you  paint 
With  far-off  scorn 

Armgart. 

I  paint  what  I  must  be! 
What  is  my  soul  to  me  without  the  voice 
That  gave  it  freedom? — gave  it  one  grand  touch 
And  made  it  nobly  human? — Prisoned  now, 
Prisoned  in  all  the  petty  mimicries 
Calli  1  woman's  knowledge,  that  will  fit  the  world 
As  tl    11-clothes  fit  a  man.     I  can  do  nought 
Bett  c  than  what  a  million  women  do — 
Musfc  drudge  among  the  crowd  and  feel  my  life 
Beating  upon  the  world  without  response. 
Beating  with  passion  through  an  insect's  horn 
Tbtit  moves  a  millet-seed  laboriously. 
V   £  would  do  it! 

Walpurga  {coldly). 

And  why  should  you  not? 

Armgart  {turnmg  quickly). 

Because  Heaven  made  me  royal — wrought  me  out 

With  subtle  finish  toward  pre-eminence. 

Made  every  channel  of  my  soul  converge 

To  one  high  function,  and  then  flung  me  down. 

That  breaking  I  might  turn  to  subtlest  pain. 

An  inborn  passion  gives  a  rebel's  right: 

I  would  rebel  and  die  in  twenty  worlds 

Sooner  than  bear  the  yoke  of  thwarted  life. 

Each  keenest  sense  turned  into  keen  distaste. 

Hunger  not  satisfied  but  kept  alive 

Breathing  in  languor  half  a  century. 

All  the  world  now  is  but  a  rack  of  threads 

To  twist  and  dwarf  me  into  pettiness 

And  basely  feigned  content,  the  placid  mask 

Of  woman's  misery 


AEMGAKT.  215 

Walpurga  {indignantly). 

Ay,  such  a  mask 
As  the  few  born  like  you  to  easy  joy. 
Cradled  in  privilege,  take  for  natural 
On  all  the  lowly  faces  that  must  look 
Upward  to  you !     What  revelation  now 
Shows  you  the  mask  or  gives  presentiment 
Of  sadness  hidden?     You  who  every  day 
These  five  years  saw  me  limp  to  wait  on  you 
And  thought  the  order  perfect  which  gave  me, 
The  girl  without  pretension  to  be  aught, 
A  splendid  cousin  for  my  happiness: 
To  watch  the  night  through  when  her  brain  was -fired 
With  too  much  gladness — listen,  always  listen 
To  Avhat  she  felt,  who  having  power  had  right 
To  feel  exorbitantly,  and  submerge 
The  souls  around  her  with  the  poured-out  flood 
Of  what  must  be  ere  she  were  satisfied! 
That  was  feigned  patience,  was  it?    Why  not  love. 
Love  nurtured  even  with  that  strength  of  self 
Which  found  no  room  save  in  another's  life? 
Oh,  such  as  I  know  joy  by  negatives. 
And  all  their  deepest  passion  is  a  pang 
Till  they  accept  their  pauper's  heritage. 
And  meekly  live  from  out  the  general  store 
Of  joy  they  were  born  stripped  of.     I  accept — 
Nay,  now  would  sooner  choose  it  than  the  wealth 
Of  natures  you  call  royal,  who  can  live 
In  mere  mock  knowledge  of  their  fellows'  woe. 
Thinking  their  smiles  may  heal  it. 

Armgart  {tremuloiisly). 

Nay,  Walpurga, 
I  did  not  make  a  palace  of  my  joy 
To  shut  the  world's  truth  from  me.     All  my  good 
Was  that  I  touched  the  world  and  made  a  part 
In  the  world's  dower  of  beauty,  strength  and  bliss; 
It  was  the  glimpse  of  consciousness  divine 
Which  pours  out  day,  and  sees  the  day  is  good. 
Now  I  am  fallen  dark;  I  sit  in  gloom, 
Eemembering  bitterly.     Yet  you  speak  truth; 
I  wearied  you,  it  seems;  took  all  youi'  help 
As  cushioned  nobles  use  a  weary  serf, 
Not  looking  at  his  face. 


316  ARMGART. 

Walpurga. 

Oh,  I  but  stand 
As  a  small  symbol  for  the  mighty  sum 
Of  claims  unpaid  to  needy  myriads; 
I  think  you  never  set  your  loss  beside 
That  mighty  deficit.     Is  your  work  gone — 
The  prouder  queenly  work  that  paid  itself 
And  yet  was  overpaid  with  men's  applause? 
Are  you  no  longer  chartered,  privileged. 
But  sunk  to  simple  woman's  penury. 
To  ruthless  Nature's  chary  average — 
Where  is  the  rebel's  right  for  you  alone?  i 

Noble  rebellion  lifts  a  common  load; 
But  what  is  he  who  llings  his  own  load  off 
And  leaves  his  fellows  toiling?     Rebel's  right? 
Say  rather,  the  deserter's.     Oh,  you  smiled 
From  your  clear  height  on  all  the  million  lots 
Which  yet  you  brand  as  abject. 

Armgart. 

I  was  blind 
With  too  much  happiness;  true  vision  comes 
Only,  it  seems,  with  sorrow.     Were  there  one 
This  moment  near  me,  suffering  what  I  feel. 
And  needing  me  for  comfort  in  her  pang — 
Then  it  were  worth  the  while  to  live;  not  else. 

Walpurga. 

One — near  you — why,  they  throng!  you  hardly  stir 
But  your  act  touches  them.     We  touch  afar. 
For  did  not  swarthy  slaves  of  yesterday 
Leap  in  their  bondage  at  the  Hebrews'  flight. 
Which  touch  them  through  the  thrice  millennial  dark  ? 
But  you  can  find  the  sufferer  you  need 
With  touch  less  subtle. 

Armgart. 

Who  has  need  of  me? 

Walpurga. 
Love  finds  the  need  it  fills.     But  you  are  hard. 


ARMGART.  217 

Armgart. 

Is  it  not  you.  Walpurga,  who  are  hard? 
You  humored  all  my  wishes  till  to-day. 
When  fate  ha^  blighted  me. 

Walpurga. 

You  would  not  hear 
The  "  chant  of  consolation  ";  words  of  hope 
Only  embittered  you.     Then  hear  the  truth — 
A  lame  girl's  truth,  whom  no  one  ever  praised 
For  being  cheerful.     "  It  is  well/'  they  said: 
**  Were  she  cross-grained  she  could  not  be  endured.'* 
A  word  of  truth  from  her  had  startled  you: 
But  you  —  you  claimed  the  universe;  nought  less 
Than  all  existence  working  in  sure  tracks 
Toward  your  supremacy.     The  wheels  might  scathe 
A  myriad  destinies  —  nay,  must  perforce; 
But  yours  they  must  keep  clear  of ;  just  for  you 
The  seething  atoms  through  the  firmament 
Must  bear  a  human  heart  —  which  you  had  not! 
For  what  is  it  to  you  that  women,  men. 
Plod,  faint,  are  weary,  and  espouse  despair 
Of  aught  but  fellowship?    Save  that  you  spurn 
To  be  among  them?    Now,  then,  you  are  lame  — 
Maimed,  as  you  snid,  and  leveled  with  the  crowd: 
Call  it  new  birth  —  birth  from  that  monstrous  Self 
Which,  smiling  down  upon  a  race  oppressed. 
Says,  "All  is  good,  for  I  am  throned  at  ease." 
Dear  Armgart  —  nay,  you  tremble  —  I  am  cruel. 

Armgart. 

Ono!  hark!    Some  one  knocks.     Come  in! — come  in! 

{Enter  Leo.) 

Leo. 

See,  Gretchen  let  me  in.     I  could  not  rest 
Longer  away  from  you. 

Armgart. 

Sit  down,  dear  Leo. 
Walpurga,  I  would  speak  with  him  alone. 

(Walpurga  goes  out.) 


218  ARMGART. 

Leo  {hesitatingly). 
You  mean  to  walk? 

Armgart. 

No,  I  shall  stay  within. 
{She  takes  off  her  hat  and  mantle,  and  sits  down  immedi- 
ately.    After  a  pause,  speaking  in  a  subdued  tone  to 
Leo.) 
How  old  are  you? 

Leo. 

Threescore  and  five. 

Armgart. 

That's  old. 
I  never  thought  till  now  how  you  have  lived. 
They  hardly  ever  play  your  music? 

Leo  {raising  his  eyebrows  and  throwing  out  his  Up). 

No! 
Schubert  too  wrote  for  silence :  half  his  work 
Lay  like  a  frozen  Rhine  till  summers  came 
That  warmed  the  grass  above  him.     Even  so! 
His  music  lives  now  with  a  mighty  youth. 

Armgart. 
Do  you  think  yours  will  live  when  you  are  dead? 

Leo. 

Pfui!     The  time  was,  I  drank  that  home-brewed  wine. 
And  found  it  heady,  while  my  blood  was  young: 
Now  it  scarce  warms  me.     Tipple  it  as  I  may, 
I  am  sober  still,  and  say:  '^''My  old  friend  Leo, 
Much  grain  is  wasted  in  the  world  and  rots; 
Why  not  thy  handful?" 

Armgart. 

Strange!  since  I  have  known  you 
Till  now  I  never  wondered  how  you  live. 
"When  I  sang  well — that  was  your  jubilee. 
But  you  were  old  already. 


AKMGART,  219 

Leo. 

Yes,  child,  yes: 
Youth  thinks  itself  the  goal  of  each  old  life; 
Age  has  but  traveled  from  a  far-off  time 
Just  to  be  ready  for  youth's  service.     Well! 
It  was  my  chief  delight  to  perfect  you.  * 

Armgart. 

Good  Leo!    You  have  lived  on  little  joys. 

But  your  delight  in  me  is  crushed  forever. 

Your  pains,  where  are  they  now?  They  shaped  intent. 

Which  action  frustrates;  shaped  an  inward  sense 

Which  is  but  keen  despair,  the  agony 

Of  highest  vision  in  the  lowest  pit. 

Leo. 

Nay,  nay,  I  have  a  thought:  keep  to  the  stage. 
To  drama  without  song;  for  you  can  act — 
Who  knows  how  well,  when  all  the  soul  is  poured 
Into  that  sluice  alone? 

Armgart. 

I  know,  and  you: 
The  second  or  third  best  in  tragedies 
That  cease  to  touch  the  fibre  of  the  time. 
No;  song  is  gone,  but  nature's  other  gift. 
Self -judgment,  is  not  gone.     Song  was  my  speech. 
And  with  its  impulse  only,  action  came: 
Song  was  the  battle's  onset,  when  cool  purpose 
Glows  into  rage,  becomes  a  warring  god 
And  moves  the  limbs  with  miracle.     But  now — 
Oh,  I  should  stand   hemmed  in  with  thoughts  and 

rules — 
Say  ''This  way  passion  acts,"  yet  never  feel 
The  might  of  passion.     How  should  I  declaim? 
As  monsters  write  with  feet  instead  of  hands. 
I  Avill  not  feed  on  doing  great  tasks  ill. 
Dull  the  world's  sense  witli  mediocrity, 
And  live  by  trash  that  smothers  excellence. 
One  gift  I  had  that  ranked  me  with  the  best — 
The  secret  of  my  frame — and  that  is  gone. 
For  all  life  now  I  am  a  broken  thing. 
But  silence  there!     Good  Leo,  advise  me  now. 


220  ARMGART. 

I  would  take  humble  work  and  do  it  well — 
Teach  music,  singing — what  I  can — not  here, 
But  in  some  smaller  town  where  I  may  bring 
The  method  you  have  taught  me,  pass  your  gift 
To  others  who  can  use  it  for  delight. 
•You  think  I  can  do  that? 

{She pauses  with  a  sob  in  her  voice.) 

Leo. 

Yes,  yes,  dear  child! 
And  it  were  well,  perhaps,  to  change  the  place — 
Begin  afresh  as  I  did  when  I  left 
Vienna  with  a  heart  half  broken. 

Abmgart  {roused  ly  surprise). 

You? 

Leo. 

Well,  it  is  long  ago.     But  I  had  lost — 
No  matter!     We  must  bury  our  dead  joys 
And  live  above  them  with  a  living  world. 
But  whither,  think  you,  you  would  like  to  go? 

Aemgart. 
To  Freiburg. 


1 


It  is  too  small. 


Leo. 

In  the  Breisgau?    And  why  there? 

Armgart. 


Walpurga  was  born  there. 
And  loves  the  place.     She  quitted  it  for  me 
These  five  years  past.     Now  I  will  take  her  there. 
Dear  Leo,  I  will  bury  my  dead  joy. 

Leo. 

Mothers  do  so,  bereaved;  then  learn  to  love 

Another's  living  child. 


ARMGART.  221 

Armgart. 

Oh,  it  is  hard 
To  take  the  little  corpse,  and  lay  it  low. 
And  say,  "^Noue  misses  it  but  me." 

She  sings 

I  mean  Paulina  sings  Fidelio, 

And  they  will  welcome  her  to-night. 

Leo. 

Well,  well, 
'Tis  better  that  our  griefs  should  not  spread  far. 


HOW  LISA  LOYED  THE  KING. 


Six  hundred  years  ago,  in  Dante's  time. 

Before  his  cheek  was  furrowed  by  deep  rhyme — 

"When  Europe,  fed  afresh  from  Eastern  story^ 

Was  like  a  garden  tangled  with  the  glory 

Of  flowers  hand-planted  and  of  flowers  air-sown, 

Climbing  and  trailing,  budding  and  full-blown, 

Where  purple  bells  are  tossed  amid  pink  stars. 

And  springing  blades,  green  troops  in  innocent  wars. 

Crowd  every  shady  spot  of  teeming  earth. 

Making  invisible  motion  visible  birth — 

Six  hundred  years  ago,  Palermo  town 

Kept  holiday.     A  deed  of  great  renown, 

A  high  revenge,  had  freed  it  from  the  yoke 

Of  hated  Frenchmen,  and  from  Calpe's  rock 

To  where  the  Bosporus  caught  the  earlier  sun, 

'Twas  told  that  Pedro,  King  of  Aragon, 

Was  welcomed  master  of  all  Sicily, 

A  royal  knight,  supreme  as  kings  should  be 

In  strength  and  gentleness  that  make  high  chivalry. 

Spain  was  the  favorite  home  of  knightly  grace. 
Where  generous  men  rode  steeds  of  generous  race; 
Both  Spanish,  yet  half  Arab,  both  inspired 
By  mutual  spirit,  that  each  motion  bred 
With  beauteous  response,  like  minstrelsy 
Afresh  fulfilling  fresh  expectancy. 
So  when  Palermo  made  high  festival. 
The  joy  of  matrons  and  of  maidens  all 
Was  the  mock  terror  of  the  tournament. 
Where  safety,  with  the  glimpse  of  danger  blent. 
Took  exultation  as  from  epic  song, 
Which  greatly  tells  the  pains  that  to  great  life  belong, 
And  in  all  eyes  King  Pedro  was  the  king 
Of  cavaliers:  as  in  a  full-gemmed  ring 
The  largest  ruby,  or  as  that  bright  star 
Whose  shining  shows  us  where  the  Hyads  are. 
His  the  best  jennet,  and  he  sat  it  best; 
His  weapon,  whether  tilting  or  in  rest, 

232 


HOW  LISA   LOVED  THE   KING.  223 

Was  worthiest  watching,  and  his  face  once  seen 

Gave  tc  the  promise  of  his  royal  mien 

Such  rich  fulfillment  as  the  opened  eyes 

Of  a  loved  sleeper,  or  the  long- watched  rise 

Of  vernal  day,  whose  joy  o'er  stream  and  meadow  flies. 

But  of  the  maiden  forms  that  thick  enwreathed 

The  broad  piazza  and  sweet  witchery  breathed. 

With  innocent  faces  budding  all  arow 

From  balconies  and  windows  high  and  low. 

Who  was  it  felt  the  deep  mysterious  glow. 

The  impregnation  with  supernal  fire 

Of  young  ideal  love — transformed  desire, 

Whose  passion  is  but  worship  of  thai  Best 

Taught  by  the  many-mingled  creed  of  each  young 

breast? 
'Twas  gentle  Lisa,  of  no  noble  line. 
Child  of  Bernardo,  a  rich  Florentine, 
Who  from  his  merchant-city  hither  came 
To  trade  in  drugs;  yet  kept  an  honest  fame. 
And  had  the  virtue  not  to  try  and  sell 
Drugs  that  had  none.     He  loved  his  riches  well. 
But  loved  them  chiefly  for  his  Lisa's  sake. 
Whom  with  a  father's  care  he  sought  to  make 
The  bride  of  some  true  honorable  man: — 
Of  Ferdicone  (so  the  rumor  ran), 
Whose  birth  was  higher  than  his  fortunes  were; 
For  still  your  trader  likes  a  mixture  fair 
Of  blood  that  hurries  to  some  higher  strain 
Than  reckoning  money's  loss  and  money's  gain. 
And  of  such  mixture  good  may  surely  come: 
Lords'  scions  so  may  learn  to  cast  a  sum, 
A  trader's  grandson  bear  a  well-set  head, 
And  have  less  conscious  manners,  better  bred; 
Nor,  when  he  tries  to  be  polite,  be  i-ude  instead. 

Twas  Perdicone's  friends  made  overtures 
To  good  Bernardo:  so  one  dame  assures 
Her  neighbor  dame  who  notices  the  youth 
Fixing  his  eyes  on  Lisa;  and  in  trtitli 
Eyec  that  could  see  her  on  this  summer  day 
Might  find  it  hard  to  turn  another  way. 
She  had  a  pensive  beauty,  yet  not  sad; 
Eather,  like  minor  cadences  that  glad 
The  hearts  of  little  birds  amid  spring  boughs; 
And  oft  the  trumpet  or  the  joust  would  rouse 


224  HOW    LI^sA    LUVLD    THE    KING. 

Pulses  that  gave  her  cheek  a  finer  glow. 

Parting  her  lips  that  seemed  a  mimic  bow 

By  chiseling  Love  for  play  in  choral  wrought. 

Then  quickened  by  him  with  passionate  thought, 

The  soul  that  trembled  in  the  lustrous  night 

Of  slow  long  eyes.     Her  body  was  so  slight. 

It  seemed  she  could  have  floated  in  the  sky. 

And  with  the  angelic  choir  made  symphony; 

But  in  her  cheek's  rich  tinge,  and  in  the  dark 

Of  darkest  hair  and  eyes,  she  bore  a  mark 

Of  kinship  to  her  generous  mother  earth. 

The  fervid  land  that  gives  the  plumy  palm-trees  birth. 

She  saw  not  Perdicone;  her  young  mind 

Dreamed  not  that  any  man  had  ever  pined 

For  such  a  little  simple  maid  as  she: 

She  had  but  dreamed  how  heavenly  it  would  be 

To  love  some  hero  noble,  beauteous,  great. 

Who  would  live  stories  worthy  to  narrate. 

Like  Koland,  or  the  warriors  of  Troy, 

The  Cid,  or  Amadis,  or  that  fair  boy 

Who  conquered  everything  beneath  the  sun. 

And  somehow,  sometime,  died  at  Babylon 

Fighting  the  Moors.     For  heroes  all  were  good 

And  fair  as  that  archangel  who  withstood 

The  Evil  One,  the  author  of  all  wrong — 

That  Evil  One  who  made  the  French  so  strong; 

And  now  the  flower  of  heroes  must  be  he 

Who  drove  those  tyrant's  from  dear  Sicily, 

So  that  her  maids  might  walk  to  vespers  tranquilly. 

Young  Lisa  saw  this  hero  in  the  king. 

And  as  wood-lilies  that  sweet  odors  bring 

Might  dream  the  light  that  opes  their  modest  eyne 

Was  lily-odored, — and  us  rights  divine, 

Round  turf-laid  altars,  or  'neath  roofs  of  stone. 

Draw  sanctity  from  out  the  heart  alone 

That  loves  and  worships,  so  the  miniature 

Perplexed  of  her  soul's  world,  all  virgin  pure. 

Filled  with  heroic  virtues  that  bright  form, 

Raona's  royalty,  the  finished  norm 

Of  horsemanship — the  half  of  chivalry: 

For  how  could  generous  men  avengers  be, 

Save  as  God's  messengers  on  coursers  fleet? — 

These,  scouring  earth,  made  Spain  with  Syria  mee* 


HOW   LISA   LOVED   THE   KING.  225 

In  one  self  world  where  the  same  right  had  swaj. 
And  good  must  grow  as  grew  the  blessed  day. 
No  more;  great  Love  his  essence  had  endured 
With  Pedro's  form,  and  entering  subdued 
The  soul  of  Lisa,  fervid  and  intense. 
Proud  in  its  choice  of  proud  obedience 
To  hardship  glorified  by  perfect  reverence. 

Sweet  Lisa  homeward  carried  that  dire  guest. 
And  in  her  chamber  through  the  hours  of  rest 
The  darkness  was  alight  for  her  with  sheen 
Of  arms,  and  plumed  helm,  and  bright  between 
Their  commoner  gloss,  like  the  pure  living  spring 
'Twixt  porphyry  lips,  or  living  bird's  bright  wing 
'Twixt  golden  wires,  the  glances  of  the  king 
Flashed  on  her  soul,  and  waked  vibrations  there 
Of  known  delights  love-mixed  to  new  and  rare: 
The  impalpable  dream  was  turned  to  breathing  flesh. 
Chill  thought  of  summer  to  the  warm  close  mesh 
Of  sunbeams  held  between  the  citron-leaves. 
Clothing  her  life  of  life.     Oh,  she  believes 
That  she  could  be  content  if  he  but  knew 
(Her  poor  small  self  could  claim  no  other  due) 
How  Lisa's  lowly  love  hud  highest  reach 
Of  winged  passion,  whereto  winged  speech 
Would  be  scorched  remnants  left  by  mounting  fliime. 
Though,  had  she  such  lame  message,  were  it  blame 
To  tell  what  greatness  dwelt  in  her,  what  rank 
She  held  in  loving?     Modest  maidens  shrank 
From  telling  love  that  fed  on  selfish  hope; 
But  love,  as  hopeless  as  the  shattering  song 
Wailed  for  loved  beings  who  have  joined  the  throng 

Of -mighty  dead  ones ^a^y?  but  she  was  weak — 

Knew  only  prayers  and  ballads — could  not  speak 
With  eloquence  save  what  dumb  creatui-es  have. 
That  with  small  cries  and  touches  small  boons  crave. 

She  watched  all  day  that  she  might  see  him  pass    . 
With  knights  and  ladies;  but  she  said,  ''Alas! 
Though  he  should  see  me,  it  were  all  as  one 
He  saw  a  pigeon  sitting  on  the 'stone 
Of  wall  or  balcony:  some  colored  spot 
His  eye  just  sees,  his  mind  regardeth  not. 
I  have  no  music-touch  that  could  bring  nigh 
My  love  to  his  soul's  hearing.     I  shall  die, 
15 


236  HOW    LISA    LOVED   THE    KllfO.  .1^ 

And  he  will  never  know  who  Lisa  was  — 

The  trader's  child,  whose  soaring  spirit  rose 

As  hedge-born  aloe-flowers  that  rarest  years  disclose, 

''  For  were  I  now  a  fair  deep-breasted  queen 
A-horseback,  with  blonde  hair,  and  tunic  green 
Gold-bordered,  like  Costanza,  I  should  need 
No  change  within  to  make  me  queenly  there; 
For  they  the  royal-hearted  women  are 
Who  nobly  love  the  noblest,  yet  have  grace 
For  needy  suffering  lives  in  lowliest  place, 
Carrying  a  choicer  sunlight  in  their  smile, 
The  heavenliest  ray  that  pitieth  the  vile. 
My  love  is  such,  it  cannot  choose  but  soar 
Up  to  the  highest;  yet  for  evermore, 
Though  I  were  happy,  throned  beside  the  king, 
I  should  be  tender  to  each  little  thing 
With  hurt  warm  breast,  that  had  no  speech  to  tell 
Its  inward  pang,  and  I  would  soothe  it  well 
With  tender  touch  and  with  a  low  soft  moan 
For  company:  my  dumb  love-pang  is  lone. 
Prisoned  as  topaz-beam  within  a  rough -garbed  stone. '"' 

So,  inward-wailing,  Lisa  passed  her  days. 

Each  night  the  August  moon  with  changing  phase 

Looked  broader,  harder  on  her  unchanged  pain; 

Each  noon  the  heat  lay  heavier  again 

On  her  despair;  until  her  body  frail 

Shrank  like  the  snow  that  watchers  in  the  vale 

See  narrowed  on  the  height  each  summer  morn; 

While  her  dark  glance  burned  larger,  more  forlorn. 

As  if  the  soul  within  her  all  on  fire 

Made  of  her  being  one  swift  funeral  pyre. 

Father  and  mother  saw  with  sad  dismay 

The  meaning  of  their  riches  melt  away: 

For  without  Lisa  what  would  sequins  buy? 

What  wish  were  left  if  Lisa  were  to  die? 

Through  her  they  cared  for  summers  still  to  come. 

Else  they  would  be  as  ghosts  without  a  home 

In  any  flesh  that  qould  feel  glad  desire. 

They  pay  the  best  physicians,  never  tire 

Of  seeking  what  will  soothe  her,  promising 

That  auglit  she  longed  for,  though  it  were  a  thing 

Hard  to  be  come  at  as  the  Indian  snow, 

Or  roses  that  on  alpine  summits  blow  — 


HO\V    LISA    LOVED   THE    KING.  227 

It  should  be  hers.     She  answers  with  low  voice. 
She  longs  for  death  alone  —  death  is  her  choice; 
Death  is  the  King  who  never  did  think  scorn, 
But  rescues  every  meanest  soul  to  sorrow  born. 

Yet  one  day,  as  they  bent  above  her  bed 
And  watched  her  in  brief  sleep,  her  drooping  head 
Turned  gently,  as  the  thirsty  flowers  that  feel 
Some  moist  revival  through  their  petals  steal. 
And  little  flutterings  of  her  lids  and  lips 
Told  of  such  dreamy  Joy  as  sometimes  dips 
A  skyey  shadow  in  the  mind's  poor  pool. 
She  oped  her  eyes,  and  turned  their  dark  gems  full 
Upon  her  father,  as  in  utterance  dumb 
Of  some  new  prayer  that  in  her  sleep  had  come. 
''What  is  it,  Lisa?''    "Father,  I  would  see 
Minuccio,  the  great  singer;  bring  him  me." 
For  always,  night  and  day,  her  unstilled  thought, 
Wandering  all  o'er  its  little  world,  had  sought 
How  she  could  reach,  by  some  soft  pleading  touch. 
King  Pedro's  soul,  that  she  who  loved  so  much 
Dying,  might  have  a  place  within  his  mind  — 
A  little  grave  which  he  would  sometimes  find 
And  plant  some  flower  on  it — some  thought,  some 

memory  kind. 
Till  in  her  dream  she  saw  Minuccio 
Touching  his  viola,  and  chanting  low 
A  strain  that,  falling  on  her  brokenly, 
Seemed  blossoms  lightly  blown  from  off  a  tree. 
Each  burdened  with  a  word  that  was  a  scent — 
Raona,  Lisa,  love,  death,  tournament; 
Then  in  her  dream  she  said,  "  He  sings  of  me — 
Might  be  my  messenger;  ah,  now  I  see 

The  king  is  listening "     Then  she  awoke. 

And,  missing  her  dear  dream,  that  new-born  longing 
spoke. 

She  longed  for  music:  that  was  natural; 

Physicians  said  it  was  medicinal; 

The  humors  might  be  schooled  by  true  consent 

Of  a  fine  tenor  and  fine  instrument; 

In  brief,  good  music,  mixed  with  doctor's  stuff,  ' 

Apollo  with  Asklepios — enough  ! 

Minuccio,  entreated,  gladly  came. 

(He  was  a  singer  of  most  gentle  fame — 


328  HOW    LISA    LOVED    THE    KING. 

A  noble,  kindly  spirit,  not  elate 

That  he  Avas  famous,  but  that  song  was  great — 

Would  sing  as  finely  to  this  suffering  child 

As  at  the  court  where  princes  on  him  smiled.) 

Gently  he  entered  and  sat  down  by  her, 

Asking  what  sort  of  strain  she  would  prefer — 

The  voice  alone,  or  voice  with  viol  wed; 

Then,  when  she  chose  the  last,  he  preluded 

With  magic  hand,  that  summoned  from  the  strings 

Aerial  spirits,  rare  yet  vibrant  wings 

That  fanned  the  pulses  of  his  listener. 

And  waked  each  sleeping  sense  with  blissful  stir. 

Her  cheek  already  showed  a  slow  faint  blush, 

But  soon  the  voice,  in  pure  full  liquid  rush. 

Made  all  the  passion,  that  till  now  she  felt. 

Seem  but  cool  waters  that  in  warmer  melt. 

Finished  the  song,  she  prayed  to  be  alone 

With  kind  Minuccio;  for  her  faith  had  grown 

To  trust  him  as  if  missioned  like  a  priest 

With  some  high  grace,  that  when  his  singing  ceased 

Still  made  him  wiser,  more  magnanimous 

Than  common  men  who  had  no  genius. 

So  laying  her  small  hand  within  his  palm, 

She  told  him  how  that  secret  glorious  harm 

Of  loftiest  loving  had  befallen  her; 

That  death,  her  only  hope,  most  bitter  were. 

If  when  she  died  her  love  must  perish  too 

As  songs  unsung  and  thoughts  unspoken  do. 

Which  else  might  live  within  another  breast. 

She  said,  "  Minuccio,  the  grave  were  rest. 

If  I  were  sure,  that  lying  cold  and  lone. 

My  love,  my  best  of  life,  had  safely  flown 

And  nestled  in  the  bosom  of  the  king; 

See,  'tis  a  small  weak  bird,  with  unfledged  wing. 

But  you  will  carry  it  for  me  secretl}'. 

And  bear  it  to  the  king,  then  come  to  me 

And  tell  me  it  is  safe,  and  I  shall  go 

Content,  knowing  that  he  I  love  my  love  doth  know.*' 

Then  she  wept  silently,  but  each  large  tear 
Made  pleading  music  to  the  inward  ear 
Of  good  Minuccio:     '*  Lisa,  trust  in  me," 
He  said,  and  kissed  her  fingers  loyally; 
**  It  is  sweet  law  to  me  to  do  your  will. 


HOW   LISA   LOVED   THE   KING.  229 

And  ere  the  sun  his  round  shall  thrice  fulfill, 

I  hope  to  bring  you  news  of  such  rare  skill 

As  amulets  have,  that  aches  in  trusting  bosoms  still/* 

He  needed  not  to  pause  and  first  devise 

How  he  should  tell  the  king;  for  in  nowise 

Were  such  love-message  worthily  bested 

Save  in  fine  verse  by  music  rendered. 

He  sought  a  poet-friend,  a  Siennese, 

And  "Mico,  mine,"  he  said,  "full  oft  to  please 

Thy  whim  of  sadness  I  have  sung  thee  strains 

To  make  thee  weep  in  verse:  now  pay  my  pains. 

And  write  me  a  canzon  divinely  sad, 

Sinlessly  passionate  and  meekly  mad 

With  young  despair,  speaking  a  maiden's  heart 

Of  fifteen  sumuiers,  who  would  fain  dejiart 

From  ripening  life's  new-urgent  mystery — 

Love-choice  of  one  too  high  her  love  to  be — 

But  cannot  yield  hor  breath  till  she  has  poured 

Her  strength  away  in  this  hot-bleeding  word 

Telling  the  secret  of  her  soul  to  her  soul's  lord." 

Said  Mico,  "Nay,  that  thought  is  poesy, 
I  need  but  listen  as  it  sings  to  me. 
Come  thou  again  to-morrow."     The  third  day, 
When  linked  notes  had  perfected  the  lay, 
Minuccio  had  his  summons  to  the  court 
To  make,  as  he  was  wont,  the  moments  short 
Of  ceremonious  dinner  to  the  king. 
This  was  the  time  when  he  had  meant  to  bring 
Melodious  message  of  young  Lisa's  love: 
He  waited  till  the  air  had  ceased  to  move 
To  ringing  silver,  till  Falernian  wine 
Made  quickened  souse  with  quietude  combine, 
And  then   with    passionate   descant   made   each  ear 
incline. 

Love,  thou  duUt  see  me,  light  as  morning's  breath, 
Roaminc}  a  garden  in  a  joyotis  error, ^ 
Laughing  at  chases  vain,  a  happy  child, 
Till  of  thy  countenance  the  alluring  terror 
hi  in'ajesty' from  out  the  blossoms  smiled, 
From  out  tlieir  life  seeming  a  beauteous  Death. 

0  Love,  who  so  didst  choose  me  for  thine  own, 
Taking  this  little  isle  to  thy  great  stvay. 


330  HOW   LISA    LOVED   THE   KIKG. 

See  now,  it  is  tlie  honor  of  thy  throne 

That  ivhat  thou  gavest  perish  not  cmay. 

Nor  leave  some  sweet  remembrance  to  aione 

By  life  that  will  be  for  the  brief  life  gone  : 

Hear,  ere  the  shroud  o'er  these  frail  limbs  be  thrown — 

Since  every  king  is  vassal  unto  thee, 

My  heart's  lord  needs  must  listen  loyally — 

0  tell  him  I  am  waiting  for  my  Death  ! 

Tell  him,  for  that  he  hath  such  royal  power 
'Tioere  hard  for  him  to  think  hoiv  small  a  thing. 
How  slight  a  sign,  ivould  make  a  wealthy  dower 
For  one  like  me,  the  bride  of  that  pale  king 
Whose  bed  is  mine  at  some  sivift-nearitig  hour. 
Go  to  'my  lord,  and  to  his  memory  bring 
That  happy  birthday  of  my  sorrowing 
When  his  large  glance  made  meaner  gazers  glad. 
Entering  the  bannered  lists  :  'twas  then  I  had 
The  wound  that  laid  me  in  the  arms  of  Death. 

Tell  him,  0  Love,  I  am  a  lowly  maid. 
No  more  than  amy  little  knot  of  thyme 
That  lie  with  careless  foot  may  often  tread ; 
Yet  loivest  fragrance  oft  to  ill  mount  sublime 
And  cleave  to  things  most  high  and  halloioed, 
As  doth  the  fragrance  of  my  life's  springtime. 
My  loivly  love,  that  soaring  seeks  to  climb 
Within  his  thought,  and  make  a  gentle  bliss, 
More  blissful  than  if  mine,  in  being  his: 
So  shall  I  live  in  him  and  rest  in  Death. 

The  strain  was  new.     It  seemed  a  pleading  cry. 

And  yet  a  rounded  perfect  melody. 

Making  grief  beauteous  as  the  tear-filled  eyes 

Of  little  child  at  little  miseries. 

Trembling  at  first,  then  swelling  as  it  rose, 

Like  rising  light  that  broad  aud  broader  grows. 

It  filled  the  hall,  and  so  possessed  the  air 

That  not  one  breathing  soul  was  present  there. 

Though  dullest,  slowest,  but  was  quivering 

In  music's  grasp,  and  forced  to  hear  her  sing. 

But  most  such  sweet  compulsion  took  the  mood 

Of  Pedro  (tired  of  doing  what  he  would). 

Whether  the  words  which  that  strange  meaning  bore 

Were  but  the  poet's  feigning  or  aught  more, 


HOW   LISA   LOVED   THE   KING.  231 

Was  boundeu  question,  since  their  aim  must  be 
At  some  imagined  or  true  royalty. 
He  called  Minuccio  and  bade  him  tell 
What  poet  of  the  day  had  writ  so  well; 
For  though  they  came  behind  all  former  rhymes. 
The  verses  were  not  bad  for  these  poor  times. 
"  Monsignor,  they  are  only  three  days  old," 
Minuccio  said;  "but  it  must  not  be  told 
How  this  song  grew,  save  to  your  royal  ear." 
Eager,  the  king  withdrew  where  none  was  near 
And  gave  close  audience  to  Minuccio, 
Who  meetly  told  that  love-tale  meet  to  know. 
The  king  had  features  pliant  to  confess 
The  presence  of  a  manly  tenderness — 
Son,  father,  brother,  lover,  blent  in  one. 
In  fine  harmonic  exaltation — 
The  spirit  of  religious  chivalry. 
He  listened,  and  Minuccio  could  see 
The  tender,  generous  admiration  spread 
O^er  all  his  face,  and  glorify  his  head 
With  royalty  that  would  have  kept  its  rank 
Though  his  brocaded  robes  to  tatters  shrank. 
He  answered  without  pause,  "  So  sweet  a  maid. 
In  nature's  own  insignia  arrayed. 
Though  she  were  come  of  unmixed  ti'ading  blood 
That  sold  and  bartered  ever  since  the  Flood, 
Would  have  the  self-contained  and  single  worth 
Of  radiant  jewels  born  in  darksome  earth. 
Raona  were  a  shame  to  Sicily, 
Letting  such  love  and  tears  unhonored  be: 
Hasten,  Minuccio,  tell  her  that  the  king 
To-day  will  surely  visit  her  when  vespers  ring." 

Joyful,  Minuccio  bore  the  joyous  word. 
And  told  at  full,  while  none  but  Lisa  heard. 
How  each  thing  had  befallen,  sang  the  song, 
And  like  a  patient  nurse  who  would  prolong 
All  means  of  soothing,  dwelt  upon  each  tone. 
Each  look,  with  which  the  mighty  Aragon 
Marked  the  high  worth  his  royal  heart  assigned 
To  that  dear  place  he  held  in  Lisa's  mind. 
She  listened  till  the  drauglits  of  pure  content 
Through  all  her  limbs  like  some  new  being  went— 
Life,  not  recovered,  but  untried  before. 
From  out  the  growing  world's  unmeasured  store 


332  HOW    LISA    LOVED    THE    KING. 

Of  fuller,  better,  more  divinely  mixed.  M 

"Twas  glad  reverse :  she  had  so  firmly  fixed 

To  die,  already  seemed  to  fall  a  veil 

Shrouding  the  inner  glow  from  light  of  senses  pale. 

Her  parents  wondering  see  her  half  arise — 
Wondering,  rejoicing,  see  her  long  dark  eyes 
Brimful  with  clearness,  not  of  'scaping  tears, 
But  of  some  light  ethereal  that  enspheres 
Their  orbs  with  calm,  some  vision  n(;wly  learned 
Where  strangest  fires  erewhile  had  blindly  burned. 
She  asked  to  have  her  soft  white  robe  and  band 
And  coral  ornaments,  and  with  her  hand 
She  gave  her  locks'  dark  length  a  backward  fall, 
Then  looked  intently  in  a  mirror  small, 
And  feared  her  face  might  perhaps  displease  the  king; 
"In  truth,"  she  said,  "l"am  a  tiny  thmg; 
I  was  too  bold  to  tell  what  could  such  visit  bring." 


Meanwhile  the  king,  revolving  in  his  thought 

That  virgin  passion,  was  more  deeply  wrought 

To  chivalrous  pity;  and  at  vesper  bell 

With  careless  mien  which  hid  his  purpose  well. 

Went  forth  on  horseback,  and  as  if  by  chance 

Passing  Bernardo's  house,  he  paused  to  glance 

At  the  fine  garden  of  this  wealthy  man, 

This  Tuscan  trader  turned  Palermitan; 

But,  presently  dismounting,  chose  to  walk 

Amid  the  trellises,  in  gracious  talk 

With  this  same  trader,  deigning  even  to  ask 

If  he  had  yet  fulfilled  the  father's  task 

Of  marrying  that  daughter  whose  young  charms 

Himself,  betwixt  the  passages  of  arms, 

Noted  admiringly.     "  Monsignor,  no. 

She  is  not  married;  that  were  little  woe. 

Since  she  has  counted  barely  fifteen  years. 

But  all  such  hopes  of  late  have  turned  to  fears; 

She  droops  and  fades;  though  for  a  space  quite  brief — 

Scarce  three  hours  past — she  finds  some  strange  relief." 

The  king  advised:  "'Twere  dole  to  all  of  us. 
The  world  should  lose  a  maid  so  beauteous; 
Let  me  now  see  her;  since  I  am  her  liege  lord. 
Her  spirits  must  wage  war  Math  death  at  my  strong 
word. " 


nO^   LIGA   LCTZD    IZTH   T.IZ'G,  233 

In  such  half-serious  playfulness,  he  wends, 

With  Lisa's  father  and  two  chosen  friends, 

Up  to  the  chamber  where  she  pillowed  sits 

Watching  the  open  door,  that  now  admits 

A  presence  as  much  better  than  her  dreams, 

As  happiness  than  any  longing  seems. 

The  king  advanced,  and,  with  a  reverent  kiss 

Upon  her  hand,  said,  "Lady,  what  is  this? 

You,  whose  sweet  youth  should  others'  solace  be. 

Pierce  all  our  hearts,  languishing  piteously. 

We  pray  you,  for  the  love  of  us,  be  cheered. 

Nor  be  too  reckless  of  that  life,  endeared 

To  us  who  know  your  passing  worthiness, 

And  count  your  blooming  life  as  part  of  our  life's 

bliss." 
Those  words,  that  touch  upon  her  hand  from  him 
Whom  her  soul  worshiped,  as  far  seraphim 
Worship  the  distant  glory,  brought  some  shame 
Quivering  upon  her  cheek,  yet  thrilled  her  frame 
With  such  deep  joy  she  seemed  in  paradise. 
In  wondering  gladness,  and  in  dumb  surprise 
That  bliss  could  be  so  blissful:  then  she  spoke — 
Signor,  I  was  too  weak  to  bear  the  yoke. 
The  golden  yoke  of  thoughts  too  great  for  me; 
That  was  the  ground  of  my  infirmity. 
But  now,  I  pray  your  grace  to  have  belief 
That  I  shall  soon  be  well,  nor  any  more  cause  grief." 

The  king  alone  perceived  the  covert  sense 
Of  all  her  words,  which  made  one  evidence 
With  her  pure  voice  and  candid  loveliness. 
That  he  had  lost  much  honor,  honoring  less 
That  message  of  her  passionate  distress. 
He  stayed  besiJe  her  for  a  little  while 
With  gentle  looks  and  speech,  until  a  smile 
As  placid  as  a  ray  of  early  morn 
On  opening  flower-cups  o'er  her  lips  was  borne. 
When  he  had  left  her,  and  the  tidings  spread 
Through  all  the  town  how  he  had  visited 
The  Tuscan  trader's  daughter,  who  was  sick. 
Men  said,  it  was  a  royal  deed  and  catholic. 
And  Lisa?  she  no  longer  wished  for  death; 
But  as  a  i)oet,  who  sweet  verses  saith 
Within  his  soul,  and  joys  in  music  there, 
Nor  seeks  another  heaven,  nor  can  bear 


234  HOW   LISA   LOVED    THE    KIKG. 

Disturbing  pleasures,  so  was  she  content,  '4 

Breathing  the  life  of  grateful  sentiment.  J 

She  thought  no  maid  betrothed  could  be  more  blest;  * 

For  treasure  must  be  valued  by  the  test 

Of  highest  excellence  and  rarity, 

And  her  dear  Joy  was  best  as  best  could  be; 

There  seemed  no  other  crown  to  her  delight 

Now  the  high  loved  one  saw  her  love  aright. 

Thus  her  soul  thriving  on  that  exquisite  mood, 

Spread  like  the  May-time  all  its  beauteous  good 

O'er  the  soft  bloom  of  neck,  and  arms,  and  cheek, 

And  strengthened  the  sweet  body,  once  so  weak, 

Until  sli^e  rose  and  walked,  and,  like  a  bird 

With  sweetly  rippling  throat,  she  made  her  spring  joys 

heard. 
The  king,  when  he  the  happy  change  had  seen, 
Trusted  the  ear  of  Constance,  his  fair  queen. 
With  Lisa's  innocent  secret,  and  conferred 
How  they  should  jointly,  by  their  deed  and  word. 
Honor  this  maiden's  love,  which,  like  the  prayer 
Of  loyal  hermits,  never  thought  to  share 
In  what  it  gave.     The  queen  had  that  chief  grace 
Of  womanhood,  a  heart  that  can  embrace 
All  goodness  in  another  woman's  form; 
And  that  same  day,  ere  the  sun  lay  too  warm 
On  southern  terraces,  a  messenger 
Informed  Bernardo  that  the  royal  pair 
Would  straightway  visit  him  and  celebrate 
Their  gladness  at  his  daughter's  happier  state. 
Which  they  were  fain  to  see.     Soon  came  the  king 
On  horseback,  with  his  barons,  heralding 
The  advent  of  the  queen  in  courtly  state; 
And  all,  descending  at  the  garden  gate. 
Streamed  with  their  feathers,  velvet,  and  brocade. 
Through  the  i^leached  alleys,  till  they,  pausing,  made 
A  lake  of  splendor  'mid  the  aloes  gray — 
When,  meekly  facing  all  their  proud  array. 
The  white-robed  Lisa  with  her  parents  stood. 
As  some  white  dove  before  the  gorgeous  brood 
Of  dapple-breasted  birds  born  by  the  Colchian  flood. 

The  king  and  queen,  by  gracious  looks  and  speech. 
Encourage  her,  and  thus  their  courtiers  teach 
How  this  fair  morning  they  may  courtliest  be  * 

By  making  Lisa  pass  it  happily. 


HOW   LISA    LOVED   THE   KING.  235 

And  soon  the  ladies  and  the  barons  all 

DraAV  her  by  turns,  as  at  a  festival 

Made  for  her  sake,  to  easy,  gay  discourse, 

And  compliment  with  looks  and  smiles  enforce; 

A  joyous  hum  is  heard  the  gardens  round; 

Soon  there  is  Spanish  dancing  and  the  sound 

Of  minstrel's  song,  and  autumn  fruits  are  plucked; 

Till  mindfully  the  king  and  queen  conduct 

Lisa  apart  to  where  a  trellised  shade 

Made  pleasant  resting.     Then  King  Pedro  said — 

"  Excellent  maiden,  that  rich  gift  of  love 
Your  heart  hath  made  us,  hath  a  worth  above 
All  royal  treasures,  nor  is  fitly  met 
Save  when  the  grateful  memory  of  deep  debt 
Lies  still  behind  the  outward  honors  done: 
And  as  a  sign  that  no  oblivion 
Shall  overflood  that  faithful  memory, 
We  while  we  live  your  cavalier  will  be, 
Nor  will  we  ever  arm  ourselves  for  fight. 
Whether  for  struggle  dire  or  brief  delight 
Of  warlike  feigning,  but  we  first  will  take 
The  colors  you  ordain,  and  for  your  sake 
Charge  the  more  bravely  where  your  emblem  is; 
Nor  will  we  ever  claim  an  added  bliss 
To  our  sweet  thoughts  of  you  save  one  sole  kiss. 
But  there  still  rests  the  outward  honor  meet 
To  mark  your  worthiness,  and  we  entreat 
That  you  will  turn  your  ear  to  proffered  vows 
Of  one  who  loves  you.  and  would  be  your  spouse. 
We  must  not  wrong  yourself  and  Sicily 
By  letting  all  your  blooming  years  pass  by 
Unmated:  you  will  give  the  world  its  due 
From  beauteous  matden  and  become  a  matron  true." 

Then  Lisa,  wrapt  in  virgin  wonderment 
At  her  ambitious  love's  complete  content. 
Which  left  no  furtlier  good  for  her  to  seek 
Than  love's  obedience,  said  with  accent  meek — 
"  Monsignor,  I  know  well  tliat  were  it  known 
To  all  the  world  how  high  my  love  had  flown, 
There  would  be  few  who  would  not  deem  me  mad. 
Or  say  my  mind  the  falsest  image  had 
Of  my  condition  and  your  lofty  place. 
But  heaven  has  seen  tliat  for  no  moment's  space 


336  HOW   LISA    LOVED   THE   KIKG. 

Have  I  forgotten  you  to  be  the  king. 
Or  me  myself  to  be  a  lowly  thing — 
A  little  lark,  enamored  of  the  sky, 
That  soared  to  sing,  to  break  its  breast,  and  die. 
But,  as  you  better  know  than  I,  the  heai-t 
In  choosing  chooseth  not  its  own  desert. 
But  that  great  merit  which  attracteth  it; 
'Tis  law,  I  struggled,  but  I  must  submit, 
And  having  seen  a  worth  all  Avorth  above, 
I  loved  you,  love  you,  and  shall  always  love. 
But  that  doth  mean,  my  will  is  ever  yours. 
Not  only  when  your  win  my  good  insures. 
But  if  it  wrought  me  what  the  world  calls  harm — 
Fire,  wounds,  would  wear  from  your  dear  will  a  charm. 
That  you  will  be  my  knight  is  full  content, 
And  for  that  kiss  — I  pray,  first  for  the  queen's  con- 
sent." 

Her  answer,  given  with  such  firm  gentleness. 

Pleased  the  queen  well,  and  made  her  hold  no  less 

Of  Lisa's  merit  than  the  king  had  held. 

And  so,  all  cloudy  threats  of  grief  dispelled, 

There  was  betrothal  made  that  very  morn 

'Twixt  Perdicone,  youthful,  brave,  well-born, 

And  Lisa,  whom  he  loved;  she  loving  well 

The  lot  that  from  obedience  befell. 

The  queen  a  rare  betrothal  ring  on  each 

Bestowed,  and  other  gems,  with  gnicious  speech. 

And  that  no  joy  might  lack,  the  king,  who  knew 

The  youth  was  poor,  gave  him  rich  Ceffalii 

And  Cataletta,  large  and  fruitful  lands —  _ 

Adding  much  promise  when  he  joined  their  hands. 

At  last  he  said  to  Lisa,  with  an  air 

Gallant  yet  noble:  "Now  we  claim  our  share 

From  your  sweet  love,  a  share  which  is  not  small: 

For  in  the  sacrament  one  crumb  is  all." 

Then  taking  her  small  face  his  hands  between. 

He  kissed  her  on  the  brow  with  kiss  serene. 

Fit  seal  to  that  pure  vision  her  young  soul  had  seen. 

Sicilians  witnessed  that  King  Pedro  kept 
His  royal  promise:  Perdicone  stept 
To  many  honors  honorably  won, 
Living  with  Lisa  in  true  union. 


HOW    LISA    LOVED   THE    KING.  237 

Throughout  his  life  the  king  still  took  delight: 
To  call  himself  fair  Lisa's  faithful  knight: 
And  never  wore  in  field  or  tournament 
A  scarf  or  emblem  save  by  Lisa  sent. 

Such  deeds  made  subjects  loyal  in  that  land: 

They  joyed  that  one  so  worthy  to  com^mand. 

So  chivalrous  and  gentle,  had  become 

The  king  of  Sicily,  and  filled  the  room 

Of  Frenchmen,  who  abused  the  Church's  trust. 

Till,  in  a  righteous  vengeance  on  their  lust, 

Messina  rose,  with  God,  and  with  the  dagger's  thrust. 

L'envoi. 

Reader,  this  story  pleased  me  long  ago 

In  the  bright  pages  of  Boccaccio, 

A7id  ivhere  the  author  of  a  good  ive  "know, 

Let  us  not  fail  to  pay  the  grateful  thanks  we  owe. 


4 


A  MINOR  PROPHET. 


I  HAVE  a  friend,  a  vegetarian  geer. 

By  name  Elias  Baptist  Bntterworth, 

A  harmless,  bland,  disinterested  man, 

Whose  ancestors  in  Cromwell's  day  believed 

The  Second  Advent  certain  in  five  years. 

But  when  King  Charles  the  Second  came  instead. 

Revised  their  date  and  sought  another  world: 

I  mean — not  heaven,  but — America. 

A  fervid  stock,  whose  generous  hope  embraced 

The  fortunes  of  mankind,  not  stopping  short 

At  rise  of  leather,  or  the  fall  of  gold. 

Nor  listening  to  the  voices  of  the  time 

As  housewives  listen  to  a  cackling  hen. 

With  wonder  whether  she  has  laid  her  egg 

On  their  own  nest-egg.     Still  they  did  insist 

Somewhat  too  wearisomely  on  the  joys 

Of  their  Millennium,  when  coats  and  hats 

Would  all  be  of  one  pattern,  books  and  songs 

All  fit  for  Sundays,  and  the  casual  talk 

As  good  as  sermons  preached  extemiDore. 

And  in  Elias  the  ancestral  zeal 
Breathes  strong  as  ever,  only  modified 
By  Transatlantic  air  and  modern  thought. 
You  could  not  pass  him  in  the  street  and  fail 
To  note  his  shoulders'  long  declivity, 
Beard  to  the  waist,  swan-neck,  and  large  pale  eyes; 
Or,  when  he  lifts  his  hat,  to  mark  his  hair 
Brushed  back  to  show  his  great  capacity — 
A  full  grain's  length  at  the  angle  of  the  brow 
Proving  him  witty,  while  the  shallower  men 
Only  seemed  witty  in  their  repartees. 
Not  that  he's  vain,  but  that  his  doctrine  needs 
The  testimony  of  his  frontal  lobe. 
On  all  points  he  adopts  the  latest  views; 
Takes  for  the  key  of  universal  Mind 
The  "levitation"  of  stout  gentlemen; 
Believes  the  Rappings  are  not  spirits'  work, 

238 


A   MINOK   PKOPHET.  239 

But  the  Thought-atmosphere's,  a  sceam  of  brains 

In  correlated  force  of  raps,  as  proved 

By  motion,  heat,  and  science  generally; 

The  spectrum,  for  example,  which  has  shown 

The  self-same  metals  in  the  sun  as  here; 

So  the  Thought-atmosphere  is  everywhere. 

High  truths  that  glimmered  under  other  names 

To  ancient  sages,  whence  good  scholarship 

Applied  to  Eleusinian  mysteries — 

The  Vedas — Tripitaka — Vendidad — 

Might  furnish  weaker  proof  for  weaker  minds 

That  Thought  Avas  rapping  in  the  hoary  past. 

And  might  have  edified  the  Greeks  by  raps 

At  the  greater  Dionysia,  if  their  ears 

Had  not  been  filled  with  Sophoclean  verse. 

And  when  all  Earth  is  vegetarian — 

When,  lacking  butchers,  quadrupeds  die  out, 

And  less  Thought-atmosphere  is  reabsorbed 

By  nerves  of  insects  parasitical. 

Those  higher  truths,  seized  now  by  higher  minds 

But  not  expressed  (the  insects  hindering) 

Will  either  flash  out  into  eloquence. 

Or  better  still,  be  comprehensible 

By  rappings  simply,  without  need  of  roots. 

*Tis  on  this  theme — the  vegetarian  world — 

That  good  Elias  willingly  expands: 

He  loves  to  tell  in  mildly  nasal  tones 

And  vowels  stretched  to  suit  the  widest  views. 

The  future  fortunes  of  our  infant  Earth — 

When  it  will  be  too  full  of  human  kind 

To  have  the  room  for  wilder  animals. 

Saith  he,  Sahara  will  be  populous 

With  families  of  gentlemen  retired 

From  commerce  in  more  Central  Africa, 

Who  order  coolness  as  we  order  coal, 

And  have  a  lobe  anterior  strong  enough 

To  think  away  the  sand-storms.     Science  thus 

Will  leave  no  spot  on  this  terraqueous  globe 

Unfit  to  be  inhabited  by  man, 

The  chief  of  animals:  all  meaner  brutes 

Will  have  been  smoked  or  elbowed  out  of  life. 

No  lions  then  shall  lap  Caffrarian  pools, 

Or  shake  the  Atlas  with  their  midnight  roar: 

Even  the  slow,  slime-loving  crocodile. 


240  A   MINOR    PROPHET. 

The  last  of  animals  to  take  a  hint, 

"Uill  then  retire  forever  from  a  scene 

Where  public  feeling  strongly  sets  against  him. 

Fishes  may  lead  carnivorous  lives  obscure, 

But  must  not  dream  of  culinary  rank 

Or  being  dished  in  good  society. 

Imagination  in  that  distant  age. 

Aiming  at  fiction  called  historical. 

Will  vainly  try  to  reconstruct  the  times 

When  it  was  man's  preposterous  delight 

To  sit  astride  live  horses,  which  consumed 

Materials  for  incalculable  cakes; 

When  there  were  milkmaids  who  drew  milk  from  cows 

With  udders  kept  abnormal  for  that  end 

Since  the  rude  mythopoeic  period 

Of  Aryan  dairymen  who  did  not  blush 

To  call  their  milkmaid  and  their  daughter  one — 

Helplessly  gazing  at  the  Milky  Way, 

Nor  dreaming  of  the  astral  cocoa-nuts 

Quite  at  the  service  of  posterity. 

'Tis  to  be  feared,  though,  that  the  duller  boys. 

Much  given  to  anachronisms  and  nuts, 

(Elias  has  confessed  boys  will  be  boys) 

May  write  a  jockey  for  a  centaur,  think 

Europa's  suitor  was  an  Irish  bull, 

^sop  a  journalist  who  wrote  up  Fox, 

And  Bruin  a  chief  swindler  upon  'Change. 

Boys  will  be  boys,  but  dogs  will  all  be  moral. 

With  longer  alimentary  canals 

Suited  to  diet  vegetarian. 

The  uglier  breeds  will  fade  from  memory. 

Or,  being  palaBontological, 

Live  but  as  portraits  in  large  learned  books. 

Distasteful  to  the  feelings  of  an  age 

Nourished  on  purest  beauty.     Earth  will  hold 

No  stupid  brutes,  no  cheerful  queernesses. 

No  naive  cunning,  grave  absurdity. 

Wart-pigs  with  tender  and  rental  grunts. 

Wombats  much  flattened  as  to  their  contour. 

Perhaps  from  too  much  crushing  in  the  ark. 

But  taking  meekly  that  fatality; 

The  serious  cranes,'  unstrung  by  ridicule; 

Long-headed,  short-legged,  solemn-looking  curs 

(Wise,  silent  critics  of  a  flippant  age); 

The  silly  straddling  foals,  the  weak-brained  geese 


A   MINOE    PROPHET.  241 

Hissing  fallaciously  at  sound  of  wheels — 

All  these  rude  j^roducts  will  have  disappeared 

Aloug  with  every  faulty  human  type. 

By  dint  of  diet  vegetarian 

All  will  be  harmony  of  hue  and  line. 

Bodies  and  minds  all  perfect,  limbs  well-turned. 

And  talk  quite  free  from  aught  erroneous. 

Thus  far  Elias  in  his  seer's  mantle: 

But  at  this  climax  in  his  prophecy 

My  sinking  spirits,  fearing  to  be  swamped, 

Urge  me  to  speak.    '' Iligh  prospects,  these,  my  friend, 

Setting  tlie  weak  carnivorous  brain  astretch; 

We  will  resume  the  thread  another  day." 

To-morrow,"  cries  Ellas,  "at  this  hour?" 

No,  not  to-morrow — I  shall  have  a  cold — 

At  least  I  feel  some  soreness — this  endemic — 

Good-bye." 

No  tears  are  sadder  than  the  smile 
With  which  I  quit  Elias.     Bitterly 
I  feel  that  every  change  upon  this  earth 
Is  bought  with  sacrifice.     My  yearnings  fail 
To  reach  that  high  apocalyptic  mount 
Which  shows  in  bird's-eye  view  a  perfect  world. 
Or  enter  warmly  into  other  joys 
Than  those  of  faulty,  struggling  human  kind. 
That  strain  upon  my  soul's  too  feeble  wing- 
Ends  in  ignoble  floundering:  1  fall 
Into  short-sighted  pity  for  the  men 
Who  living  in  those  perfect  future  times 
Will  not  know  half  the  dear  imperfect  things 
That  move  my  smiles  and  tears — will  never  know 
The  fine  old  incongruities  that  raise 
My  friendly  laugh;  the  innocent  conceits 
That  like  a  needless  eyeglass  or  black  patch 
Give  those  who  wear  them  liarmless  liapi)iness; 
The  twists  and  cracks  in  our  poor  earthenware, 
That  touch  me  to  more  conscious  fellowship 
(I  am  not  myself  the  finest  Parian) 
With  my  coevals.     So  poor  Colin  Clout, 
To  whom  raw  onion  gives  prospective  zest. 
Consoling  hours  of  dampest  wintry  work. 
Could  liardly  fancy  any  regal  joys 
Quite  unimpregnatc  with  the  onion's  scent: 
Perhaps  his  highest  hopes  are  not  all  clear 
16 


342  A  MINOR   PROPHET. 

Of  waftings  from  that  energetic  bulb: 
^Tis  well  that  onion  is  not  heres}-. 
Speaking  in  parable,  I  am  Colin  Clout. 
A  clinging  flavor  penetrates  my  life — 
My  onion  is  imperfectness:  I  cleave 
To  nature's  blunders,  evanescent  types 
Which  sages  banish  from  Utopia. 
"Not  worship  beauty?''  say  you.     Patience,  friend! 
I  worship  in  the  temple  with  the  rest; 
But  by  my  hearth  I  keep  a  sacred  nook 
For  gnomes  and  dwarfs,  duck-footed  waddling  elves 
Who  stitched  and  hammered  for  the  weary  man 
In  days  of  old.     And  in  that  piety 
I  clothe  ungainly  forms  inherited 
From  toiling  generations,  daily  bent 
At  desk,  or  plough,  or  loom,  or  in  the  mine. 
In  pioneering  labors  for  the  world. 
Nay,  I  am  apt  when  floundering  confused 
From  too  rash  flight,  to  grasp  at  paradox. 
And  pity  future  men  who  will  not  know 
A  keen  experience  with  pity  blent. 
The  pathos  exquisite  of  lovely  minds 
Hid  in  harsh  forms — not  penetrating  them 
Like  fire  divine  within  a  common  bush 
Which  glows  transfigured  by  the  heavenly  guest. 
So  that  men  put  their  shoes  off;  but  encaged 
Like  a  sweet  child  within  some  thick-walled  cell. 
Who  leaps  and  fails  to  hold  the  window-bars. 
But  having  shown  a  little  dimpled  hand 
Is  visited  thenceforth  by  tender  hearts 
Whose  eyes  keep  watch  about  the  prison- walls. 
A  foolish,  nay,  a  wicked  paradox! 
For  purest  pity  is  the  eye  of  love 
Melting  at  sight  of  sorrow;  and  to  grieve 
Because  it  sees  no  sorrow,  shows  a  love 
Warped  from  its  truer  nature,  turned  to  love 
Of  merest  habit,  like  the  miser's  greed. 
But  I  am  Colin  still:  my  prejudice 
Is  for  the  flavor  of  my  daily  food. 
Not  that  I  doubt  the  world  is  growing  still 
As  once  it  grew  from  Chaos  and  from  Night; 
Or  have  a  soul  too  shrunken  for  the  hope 
Which  dawned  in  human  breasts,  a  double  morn. 
With  earliest  watchings  of  the  rising  light 
Chasing  the  darkness;  and  through  many  an  age 


A   MIXOE    PROPHET.  343 

Has  raised  the  vision  of  a  future  time 
That  stands  an  angel  with  a  face  all  mild 
Spearing  the  demon.     I  too  rest  in  faith 
That  man's  perfection  is  the  crowning  flower, 
Toward  which  the  urgent  sap  in  life's  great  tree 
Is  pressing, — seen  in  puny  blossoms  now, 
But  in  the  world's  great  morrows  to  expand 
With  broadest  petal  and  with  deepest  glow. 

Yet,  see  the  patched  and  plodding  citizen 
Waiting  upon  the  pavement  with  the  throng 
While  some  victorious  world-hero  makes 
Triumphal  entry,  and  the  peal  of  shouts 
And  flush  of  faces  'neath  uplifted  hats 
Kun  like  a  storm  of  joy  along  the  streets! 
He  says,  "  God  bless  him!"  almost  with  a  sob. 
As  the  great  hero  passes;  he  is  glad 
The  world  holds  mighty  men  and  mighty  deeds; 
The  music  stirs  his  pulses  like  strong  wine, 
The  moving  splendor  touches' him  with  awe — 
'Tis  glory  shed  around  the  common  weal. 
And  he  will  pay  his  tribute  willingly. 
Though  with  the  pennies  earned  by  sordid  toil. 
Perhaps  the  hero's  deeds  have  helped  to  bring 
A  time  when  every  honest  citizen 
Shall  wear  a  coat  unpatched.     And  yet  he  feels 
More  easy  fellowship  with  neighbors  there 
Who  look  on  too;  and  he  will  soon  relapse 
From  noticing  the  banners  and  the  steeds 
To  think  with  pleasure  there  is  just  one  bun 
Left  in  his  pocket,  that  may  serve  to  tempt 
The  wide-eyed  lad,  whose  Aveight  is  all  too  much 
For  that  young  mother's  arms:  and  then  he  falls 
To  dreamy  picturing  of  sunny  days 
When  he  himself  was  a  small  big-cheeked  lad 
In  some  far  village  where  no  heroes  came. 
And  stood  a  listener  'twixt  his  father's  legs 
In  the  warm  fire-light  while  the  old  folk  talked 
And  shook  their  heads  and  looked  upon  the  floor; 
And  he  was  puzzled,  thinking  life  was  fine — 
The  bread  and  checise  so  nice  all  through  the  year 
And  Christmas  sure  to  come!     Oh  that  good  time! 
He,  could  he  choose,  would  have  those  days  again 
And  see  the  dear  old-fashioned  things  once  more. 
But  soon  the  wheels  and  drums  have  all  passed  by 


1 


244  A   MINOR    PROPHET. 

And  tramping  feet  are  heard  like  sudden  rain; 

The  quiet  startles  our  good  citizen; 

He  feels  the  child  upon  his  arms,  and  knows 

He  is  with  the  people  making  holiday 

Because  of  hopes  for  better  days  to  come. 

But  hope  to  him  was  like  the  brilliant  west 

Telling  of  sunrise  in  a  world  unknown. 

And  from  tluit  dazzling  curtain  of  bright  hues 

He  turned  to  the  familiar  face  of  fields 

Lying  all  clear  in  the  calm  morning  land. 

Maybe  'tis  wiser  not  to  fix  a  lens 

Too  scrutinizing  on  the  glorious  times 

When  Barbarossa  shall  arise  and  shake 

His  mountain,  good  King  Arthur  come  again. 

And  all  the  heroes  of  such  giant  soul 

That,  living  once  to  cheer  mankind  with  hope, 

They  had  to  sleep  until  the  time  was  ripe 

For  greater  deeds  to  match  their  greater  thought. 

Yet  no!  the  earth  yields  nothing  more  divine 

Than  high  prophetic  vision — than  the  Seer 

Who  fasting  from  man's  meaner  joy  beholds 

The  patlis  of  beauteous  order,  and  constructs 

A  fairer  type  to  shame  our  Ioav  content. 

But  prophecy  is  like  potential  sound 

AYhich  turned  to  music  seems  a  voice  sublime 

From  out  the  soul  of  light;  but  turns  to  noise 

In  scrannel  pipes,  and  makes  all  ears  averse. 

The  faith  that  life  on  earth  is  being  shaped 

To  glorious  ends,  that  order,  justice,  love 

Mean  man's  completeness,  mean  effect  as  sura 

As  roundness  in  the  dew-drop — that  great  faith 

Is  but  the  rushing  and  expanding  stream 

Of  thought,  of  feeling,  fed  by  all  the  past. 

Our  finest  hope  is  finest  memory, 

As  they  who  love  in  age  think  youth  is  blest 

Because  it  has  a  life  to  fill  with  love. 

Full  souls  are  double  mirrors,  making  still 

An  endless  vista  of  fair  things  before 

Repeating  things  behind;  so  faith  is  strong 

Only  when  we  are  strong,  shrinks  when  we  shrink. 

It  comes  when  music  stirs  us  and  the  chords 

Moving  on  some  grand  climax  shake  our  souls 

With  influx  new  that  makes  new  energies. 

It  comes  in  swellings  of  the  heart  and  tears 


A    MINOR    PROPHET.  245 

That  rise  at  noble  and  at  gentle  deeds — 
At  labors  of  the  master  artist's  hand 
Which,  trembling,  touches  to  a  finer  end. 
Trembling  before  an  image  seen  within. 
It  comes  in  moments  of  heroic  love, 
Unjealous  joy  in  joy  not  made  for  us — 
In  conscious  triumph  of  the  good  within 
Making  us  worship  goodness  that  rebukes. 
Even  our  failures  are  a  prophecy. 
Even  our  yearnings  and  our  bitter  tears 
After  that  fair  and  true  we  cannot  grasp; 
As  patriots  who  seem  to  die  in  vain 
Make  liberty  more  sacred  by  their  pangs. 

Presentiment  of  better  things  on  earth 

Sweeps  in  with  every  force  that  stirs  our  souls 

To  admiration,  self-renouncing  love, 

Or  thoughts,  like  light,  that  bind  the  world  in  one; 

Sweeps  like  the  sense  of  vastness,  when  at  night 

We  hear  the  roll  and  dash  of  waves  that  break 

Nearer  and  nearer  with  the  rushing  tide. 

Which  rises  to  the  level  of  the  clifE 

Because  the  wide  Atlantic  rolls  behind 

Throbbing  respondent  to  the  far-off  orbs. 


BROTHER  AND  SISTER. 


I. 

I  CANITOT  choose  but  think  upon  the  time 
When  our  two  lives  grew  like  two  buds  that  kiss 
At  lightest  thrill  from  the  bee's  swinging  chime. 
Because  the  one  so  near  the  other  is. 

He  was  the  elder  and  a  little  man 
Of  forty  inches,  bound  to  show  no  dread. 
And  I  the  girl  that  puppy-like  now  ran, 
Now  lagged  behind  my  brother's  larger  tread. 

I  held  him  wise,  and  when  he  talked  to  me 
Of  snakes  and  birds,  and  which  God  loved  the  best, 
I  thought  his  knowledge  marked  the  boundary 
Where  men  grew  blind,  though  angels  knew  the  rest. 

If  he  said  "Hush!"  I  tried  to  hold  my  breath. 
Wherever  he  said  "Come!"  I  stepped  in  faith. 

II. 

Long  years  have  left  their  writing  on  my  brow. 
But  yet  the  freshness  and  the  dew-fed  beam 
Of  those  young  mornings  are  about  me  now, 
When  we  two  wandered  toward  the  far-off  stream 

With  rod  and  line.     Our  basket  held  a  store 
Baked  for  us  only,  and  I  thought  with  joy 
That  I  should  have  my  share,  though  he  had  more. 
Because  he  was  the  elder  and  a  boy. 

The  firmaments  of  daisies  since  to  me 
Have  had  those  mornings  in  their  opening  eyes. 
The  bunched  cowslip's  pale  transparency 
Carries  that  sunshine  of  sweet  memories. 

And  wild-rose  branches  take  their  finest  scent 
From  those  blest  hours  of  infantine  content. 

346 


BEOTHEE   AND   SISTEE.  247 

ni. 

Our  mother  bade  us  keep  the  trodden  ways. 
Stroked  down  my  tippet,  set  my  brother's  frill. 
Then  with  the  benediction  of  her  gaze 
Clung  to  us  lessening,  and  pursued  us  still 

Across  the  homestead  to  the  rookery  elms. 
Whose  tall  old  trunks  had  each  a  grassy  mound. 
So  rich  for  us,  we  counted  them  as  realms 
With  varied  products:  here  were  earth-nuts  found. 

And  here  the  lady-fingers  in  deep  shade; 
Here  sloping  toward  the  Moat  the  rushes  grew. 
The  large  to  split  for  jaith,  the  small  to  braid; 
While  over  all  the  dark  rooks  cawing  flew. 

And  made  a  happy  strange  solemnity, 

A  deep-toned  chant  from  life  unknown  to  me. 

IV. 

Our  meadow-path  had  memorable  spots: 
One  where  it  bridged  a  tiny  rivulet. 
Deep  hid  by  tangled  blue  Forget-me-nots; 
And  all  along  the  waving  grasses  met 

My  little  palm,  or  nodded  to  my  cheek. 
When  flowers  with  upturned  faces  gazing  drew 
My  wonder  downward,  seeming  all  to  speak 
With  eyes  of  souls  chat  dumbly  heard  and  knew. 

Then    came    the  copse,    where  wild   things    rushed 

unseen, 
And  black-scathed  grass  betrayed  the  past  abode 
Of  mystic  gypsies,  who  still  lurked  between 
Me  and  each  liidden  distance  of  the  road. 

A  gypsy  once  had  startled  me  at  play, 
Blotting  with  her  dark  smile  my  sunny  day. 


Thus  rambling  we  were  schooled  in  deepest  lore. 
And  learned  the  meanings  that  give  words  a  soul. 
The  fear,  the  love,  the  primal  passionate  store. 
Whose  shaping  impulses  make  manhood  whole. 


248  BBOTHER   AND    SISTER. 

Those  hours  were  seed  to  all  my  after  good; 
My  infant  gladness,  through  eye,  ear,  and  touch. 
Took  easily  as  warmth  a  various  food 
To  nourish  the  sweet  skill  of  loving  much. 

For  who  in  age  shall  roam  the  earth  and  find 
Eeasons  for  loving  that  will  strike  out  love 
With  sudden  rod  from  the  hard  year-pressed  mind? 
Were  reasons  sown  as  thick  as  stars  above, 

'Tis  love  must  see  them,  as  the  eye  sees  light: 
Day  is  but  Number  to  the  darkened  sight. 

VI. 

Our  brown  canal  was  endless  to  my  thought; 
And  on  its  banks  I  sat  in  dreamy  peace. 
Unknowing  how  the  good  I  loved  was  wrought. 
Untroubled  by  the  fear  that  it  would  cease. 

Slowly  the  barges  floated  into  view 
Bounding  a  grassy  hill  to  me  sublime 
With  some  Unknown  beyond  it,  whither  flew 
The  parting  cuckoo  toward  a  fresh  spring-time. 

The  wide-arched  bridge,  the  scented  elder-flowers. 
The  wondrous  watery  rings  that  died  too  soon. 
The  echoes  of  the  quarry,  the  still  hours 
With  white  robe  sweeping- on  the  shadeless  noon, 

Were  but  my  growing  self,  are  part  of  me. 
My  present  Past,  my  root  of  piety. 

VII. 

Those  long  days  measured  by  my  little  feet 
Had  chronicles  which  yield  me  many  a  text; 
Where  irony  still  finds  an  image  meet 
Of  full-grown  judgments  in  this  world  perplexed. 

One  day  my  brother  left  me  in  high  charge. 
To  mind  the  rod,  while  he  went  seeking  bait, 
And  bade  me,  when  I  saw  a  nearing  barge. 
Snatch  out  the  line,  lest  he  should  come  too  late. 

Proud  of  the  task,  I  watched  with  all  my  might 
For  one  whole  minute,  till  my  eyes  grew  wide. 


BROTHER   AKT)    SISTER.  249 

Till  sky  und  earth  took  on  a  strange  new  light 
And  seemed  a  dream-world  floating  on  some  tide — 

A  fair  pavilioned  boat  for  me  alone 

Bearing  me  onward  through  the  vast  unknown. 

VIII. 

But  sudden  came  the  barge's  pitch-black  prow, 
Nearer  and  angrier  came  my  larother's  cry. 
And  all  my  soul  was  quivering  fear,  when  lo! 
Upon  the  imperiled  line,  suspended  high, 

A  silver  perch!     My  guilt  that  won  the  prey. 
Now  turned  to  merit,  had  a  guerdon  rich 
Of  hugs  and  praises,  and  made  merry  play. 
Until  my  triumph  reached  its  highest  pitch 

When  all  at  home  were  told  the  wondrous  feat, 
And  how  the  little  sister  had  fished  well. 
In  secret,  though  my  fortune  tasted  sweet, 
I  wondered  why  this  happiness  befell. 

"  The  little  lass  had  luck,"  the  gardener  said: 
And  so  I  learned,  luck  was  with  glory  wed. 


IX. 

We  had  the  self-same  world  enlarged  for  each 
By  loving  difference  of  girl  and  boy: 
The  fruit  tliat  hung  oji  high  beyond  my  reach 
He  plucked  for  me,  and  oft  he  must  employ 


A  measuring  glance  to  guide  my  tiny  shoe 
Where  lay  firm  stepping-stones,  or  call  to  mind 
"^liis  thing  I  like  my  sister  may  not  do, 
For  she  is  little,  and  I  must  be  kind." 

Thus  boyish  Will  the  nobler  mastery  learned 
Where  inward  vision  over  impulse  reigns. 
Widening  its  life  with  separate  life  discerned^ 
A  Like  unlike,  a  Self  that  self  restrains. 

His  years  with  others  must  the  sweeter  be 
•    For  those  brief  days  he  spent  in  loving  mc. 


250  BROTHER   AND   SISTER. 


His  sorrow  was  my  sorrow,  and  his  joy 

Sent  little  leaps  and  laughs  through  all  my  frame; 

My  doll  seemed  lifeless  and  no  girlish  toy 

Had  any  reason  when  my  brother  came. 

I  knelt  with  him  at  marbles,  marked  his  fling 
Cut  the  ringed  stem  and  make  the  apple  drop. 
Or  watched  him  winding  close  the  spiral  string 
That  looped  the  orbits  of  the  humming  top. 

Grasped  by  such  fellowship  my  vagrant  tliought 
Ceased  with  dream-fruit  dream-wislies  to  fulfill; 
My  airy-picturing  fantasy  was  tauglit 
Subjection  to  the  harder,  truer  skill 

That  seeks  with  deeds  to  grave  a  thought-tracked 

line. 
And  by  ''What  is,''  ''  What  will  be"  to  define. 

XI. 

School  parted  us;  we  never  found  again 
That  childish  world  where  our  two  spirits  mingled 
Like  scents  from,  varying  roses  that  remain 
One  sweetness,  nor  can  evermore  be  singled. 

Yet  the  twin  habit  of  that  early  time 
Lingered  for  long  about  the  heart  and  tongue: 
We  had  been  natives  of  one  happy  clime, 
And  its  dear  accent  to  our  utterance  clung. 

Till  the  dire  years  whose  awful  name  is  Change 
Had  grasped  our  souls  still  yearning  in  divorce. 
And  pitiless  shaped  them  in  two  forms  that  range 
Two  elements  which  sever  their  life's  course. 

But  were  another  childhood-world  my  share, 
I  would  be  born  a  little  sister  there. 


STKADIYAEIUS. 


Yotm  soul  was  lifted  by  the  wings  to-day 

Hearing  the  master  of  the  violin : 

You  praised  him,  praised  the  great  Sebastian  too 

Who  made  that  fine  Chaconne;  but  did  you  think 

Of  old  Antonio  Stradivari?  —  him 

Who  a  good  century  and  half  ago 

Put  his  true  work  in  that  brown  instrument 

And  by  the  nice  adjustment  of  its  frame 

Gave  it  responsive  life,  continuous 

With  the  master's  finger-tips  and  perfected 

Like  them  by  delicate  rectitude  of  use. 

Not  Bach  alone,  helped  by  fine  precedent 

Of  genius  gone  before,  nor  Joachim 

Who  holds  the  strain  afresh  incorporate 

By  inward  hearing  and  notation  strict 

Of  nerve  and  muscle,  made  our  joy  to-day: 

Another  soul  was  living  in  the  air 

And  swaying  it  to  true  deliverance 

Of  high  invention  aud  responsive  skill:  — 

That  plain  white-aproned  man  who  stood  at  work 

Patient  and  accurate  full  fourscore  years, 

Cherished  his  sight  and  touch  by  temperance. 

And  since  keen  sense  is  love  of  perfectness 

Made  perfect  violins,  the  needed  paths 

For  inspiration  and  high  mastery. 

No  simpler  man  than  he:  he  never  cried, 
'^AVhy  was  I  born  to  this  monotonous  task 
Of  making  violins?"  or  flung  them  down 
To  suit  with  hurling  act  a  well-hurled  curse 
At  labor  on  such  perishable  stuff. 
Hence  neighbors  in  Cremona  held  him  dull. 
Called  him  a  slave,  a  mill-horse,  a  machine. 
Begged  him  to  tell  his  motives  or  to  lend 
A  few  gold  pieces  to  a  loftier  mind. 
Yet  he  had  pithy  words  full  fed  by  fact; 
For  Fact,  well-trusted,  reasons  and  persuades. 
Is  gnomic,  cutting,  or  ironical, 
Draws  tears,  or  is  a  tocsin  to  arouse  — 

251 


252  STRADIVARIUS. 

Can  hold  all  figures  of  the  orator 

In  one  plain  sentence;  has  her  pauses  too  — 

Eloquent  silence  at  the  chasm  abrupt 

■Where  knowledge  ceases.     Thus  Antonio 

Made  answers  as  Fact  willed,  and  made  them  strong. 

Naldo,  a  painter  of  eclectic  school. 
Taking  his  dicers,  candlelight  and  grins 
From  Caravaggio,  and  in  holier  groups 
Combining  Flemish  flesh  with  martyrdom  — 
Knowing  all  tricks  of  style  at  thirty-one, 
And  weary  of  them,  while  Antonio 
At  sixty-nine  wrought  placidly  his  best 
Making  the  violin  you  heard  to-day  — 
ISTaldo  would  tease  him  oft  to  tell  his  aims. 
"Perhaps  thou  hast  some  pleasant  vice  to  feed  — 
The  love  of  louis  d'ors  in  heaps  of  four. 
Each  violin  a  heap  —  I've  nought  to  blame; 
My  vices  waste  such  heaps.     But  then,  why  work 
With  painful  nicety?    Since  fame  once  earned 
By  luck  or  merit  —  of tenest  by  luck  — 
(Else  why  do  I  put  Bonifazio's  name 
To  W'ork  that  'jjinxit  Naldo'  would  not  sell?) 
Is  welcome  index  to  the  wealthy  mob 
Where  they  should  pay  their  gold,  and  where  they  pay 
There  they  find  merit  —  take  your  tow  for  flax. 
And  hold  the  flax  unlabeled  with  your  name. 
Too  coarse  for  sufferance.  ^" 


» 


Antonio  then: 
''■  I  like  the  gold  —  well,  yes  —  but  not  for  meals. 
And  as  my  stomach,  so  my  eye  and  hand, 
And  inward  sense  that  works  along  with  both. 
Have  hunger  that  can  never  feed  on  coin. 
Who  draws  a  line  and  satisfies  his  soul. 
Making  it  crooked  where  it  should  be  straight? 
An  idiot  with  an  oyster-shell  may  draw 
His  lines  along  the  sand,  all  wavering. 
Fixing  no  point  or  pathway  to  a  point; 
An  idiot  one  remove  may  choose  his  line, 
Straggle  and  be  content;  but  God  be  praised^^ 
Antonio  Stradivari  has  an  eye 
That  winces  at  false  work  and  loves  the  true. 
With  hand  and  arm  that  i)lay  upon  the  tool 
As  willingly  as  any  singing  bird 


STRADIVAEIUS.  253 

Sets  liim  to  sing  his  morning  roundelay. 
Because  he  likes  to  sing  and  likes  the  song." 

Then  Naldo:  ^'Tis  a  pretty  kind  of  fame 
At  best,  that  comes  of  making  violins; 
And  saves  no  masses,  either.     Thou  wilt  go 
To  purgatory  none  the  less." 

But  he: 
"'Twere  purgatory  here  to  make  them  ill; 
And  for  my  fame — when  any  master  holds 
'Twixt  chin  and  hand  a  violin  of  mine. 
He  will  be  glad  that  Stradivari  lived, 
Made  violins,  and  made  them  of  the  best. 
The  masters  only  know  whose  work  is  good; 
They  will  choose  mine,  and  while  God  gives  them  skill 
I  give  them  instruments  to  play  ujDon, 
God  choosing  me  to  help  Him," 

"What!  were  God 
At  fault  for  violins,  thou  absent  ?  " 

"Yes; 
He  were  at  fault  for  Stradivari^s  work." 

"  Why,  many  hold  Giuseppe's  violins 
As  good  as  thine." 

"  May  be;  they  are  different. 
His  quality  declines;  he  spoils  his  hand 
With  over-drinking.     But  were  his  the  best. 
He  could  not  work  for  two.     My  work  is  mine. 
And,  heresy  or  not,  if  my  hand  slacked 
I  should  rob  God — since  He  is  fullest  good — 
Leaving  a  blank  instead  of  violins, 
I  say,  not  God  Himself  can  make  man's  best 
Without  best  men  to  help  Him.     I  am  one  best 
Here  in  Cremona,  using  sunlight  well 
To  fashion  finest  maple  till  it  serves 
More  cunningly  than  throats,  for  harmony. 
'Tis  rare  delight;  I  would  not  change  my  skill 
To  be  the  Emperor  with  bungling  hands, 
And  lose  my  work.  Avhich  comes  as  natural 
As  self  at  waking." 

"  Thou  art  little  more 
Than  a  deft  potter's  wheel,  Antonio; 
Turning  out  work  by  mere  necessity 
And  lack  of  varied  function.     Higher  arts 
Subsist  on  freedom — eccentricity — 


254  STRADIVARIUS. 

Uncounted  inspirations — influence 

That  comes  with  drinking,  gambling,  talk  turned  wild, 

Then  moody  misery  and  lack  of  food — 

With  every  dithyrambic  fine  excess; 

These  make  at  last  a  storm  which  flashes  out 

In  lightning  revelations.     Steady  work 

Turns  genius  to  a  loom;  the  soul  must  lie 

Like  grapes  beneath  the  sun  till  ripeness  comes 

And  mellow  vintage.     I  could  paint  you  now 

The  finest  Crucifixion;  yesternight 

Returning  home  I  saw  it  on  a  sky. 

Blue-black,  thick-starred.     I  want  two  louis  d'ors 

To  buy  the  canvas  and  the  costly  blues — 

Trust  me  a  fortnight." 

"  Where  are  those  last  two 
I  lent  thee  for  thy  Judith? — her  thou  saw^st 
In  saffron  gown,  with  Holofernes'  head 
And  beauty  all  complete?" 

"  She  is  but  sketched; 
I  lack  the  proper  model — and  the  mood. 
A  great  idea  is  an  eagle's  egg. 
Craves  time  for  hatching;  while  the  eagle  sits 
Feed  her." 

"  If  thou  wilt  call  thy  pictures  eggs 
I  call  the  hatching.  Work.     "Tis  God  gives  skill. 
But  not  without  men's  hands;  He  could  not  make 
Antonio  Stradivari's  violins 
Without  Antonio.     Get  thee  to  thy  easel." 


A  COLLEGE  BKEAKFAST-PAETT. 


Young  Hamlet,  not  the  hesitating  Dane, 

But  one  named  after  him,  who  lately  strove 

For  honors  at  our  English  Wittenberg, — 

Blonde,  metaphysical,  and  sensuous, 

Questioning  all  things  and  yet  half  convinced 

Credulitv  were  better;  held  inert 

'Twixt  fascinations  of  all  opposites, 

And  half  suspecting  that  the  mightiest  soul 

(Perhaps  his  own?)  was  union  of  extremes, 

Having  no  choice  but  choice  of  everything: 

As,  drinking  deep  to-day  for  love  of  wine, 

To-morrow  half  a  Brahmin,  scorning  life 

As  mere  illusion,  yearning  for  that  True 

Which  has  no  qualities;  another  day 

Finding  the  fount  of  grace  in  sacraments. 

And  purest  reflex  of  the  light  divine 

In  gem-bossed  pyx  and  broidered  chasuble, 

Eesolved  to  wear  no  stockings  and  to  fast 

With  arms  extended,  waiting  ecstasy; 

But  getting  cramps  instead,  and  needing  change, 

A  would-be  pagan  next: — 

Young  Hamlet  sat 
A  guest  with  five  of  somewhat  riper  age 
At  breakfast  with  Horatio,  a  friend 
With  few  opinions,  but  of  faithful  heart, 
Quick  to  detect  the  fibrous  spreading  roots 
Of  character  that  feed  men's  theories. 
Yet  cloaking  weaknesses  with  charity 
And  ready  in  all  service  save  rebuke. 

With  ebb  of  breakfast  and  the  cider-cup 
Came  high  debate:  the  others  seated  there 
Were  Osric,  spinner  of  fine  sentences, 
A  delicate  insect  creeping  over  life 
Feeding  on  molecules  of  floral  breath. 
And  weaving  gossamer  to  trap  the  sun; 
Laertes  ardent,  rash,  and  radical; 
Discursive  Rosencranz,  grave  Guildenstern, 
And  he  for  whom  the  social  meal  was  made — 

255 


256  A    COLLEGE    BREAKFAST-PARTY. 

The  i^olished  priest,  a  tolerant  listener, 

Disposed  to  give  a  hearing  to  the  lost, 

And  breakfast  with  them  ere  they  went  below. 

Prom  alpine  metaphysic  glaciers  first 

The  talk  sprang  copions;  the  themes  were  old. 

But  so  is  human  breath,  so  infant  eyes, 

The  daily  nurslings  of  creative  light. 

Small  words  held  miglity  meanings:  Matter,  Force, 

Self,  Not-self,  Being,  Seeming,  Space  and  Time — 

Plebeian  toilers  on  the  dusty  road 

Of  daily  traffic,  turned  to  Genii 

And  cloudy  giants  darkening  sun  and  moon. 

Creation  was  reversed  in  human  talk: 

None  said,  "  Let  Darkness  Ije,"  but  Darkness  was; 

And  in  it  weltered  with  Teutonic  ease. 

An  argumentative  Leviathan, 

Blowing  cascades  from  out  his  element. 

The  thunderous  Eosencranz,  till 

''Truce,  I  beg!'' 
Said  Osric,  with  nice  accent.     "  I  abhor 
That  battling  of  the  ghosts,  that  strife  of  terms 
For  utmost  lack  of  color,  form,  and  breath. 
That  tasteless  squabbling  called  Philosophy: 
As  if  a  blue-winged  butterfly  afloat 
For  just  three  days  above  the  Italian  fields. 
Instead  of  sipping  at  the  heart  of  flowers. 
Poising  in  sunshine,  fluttering  toward  its  bride. 
Should  fast  and  speculate,  considering 
What  were  if  it  were  not?"  or  what  now  is 
[nstead  of  that  which  seems  to  be  itself? 
Its  deepest  wisdom  surely  were  to  be 
A  sipping,  marrying,  blue-winged  butterfly; 
Since  utmost  speculation  on  itself 
Were  but  a  three  days'  living  of  worse  sort — 
A  bruising  struggle  all  within  the  bounds 
Of  butterfly  existence."  • 

"  I  protest/' 
Burst  in  Laertes,  "against  arguments 
Tliat  start  with  calling  me  a  butterfly, 
A  bubble,  spark,  or  otlier  metaphor 
Wbich  carries  your  conclusions  as  a  phrase 
In  quibbling  law  will  carry  property. 
Put  a  thin  sucker  for  my  human  lips 
Fed  at  a  mother's  breast,  who  now  needs  food 


A    COLLEGE    BREAKFAST-PARTY.  257 

That  I  will  earn  for  her:  put  bubbles  blown 

From  frothy  thinking,  for  the  joy,  the  love. 

The  wants,  the  pity,  and  the  fellowship 

(The  ocean  deeps  I  might  say,  were  I  bent 

On  bandying  metaphors)  that  make  a  man — 

Why,  rhetoric  brings  within  y6ur  easy  reach 

Conclusions  worthy  of — a  butterfly. 

The  universe,  I  hold,  is  no  charade. 

No  acted  pun  unriddled  by  a  word. 

Nor  pain  a  decimal  diminishing 

With  hocus-pocus  of  a  dot  or  nought. 

For  those  who  know  it,  pain  is  solely  pain: 

Not  any  letters  of  the  alphabet 

Wrought  syllogistically  pattern-wise, 

Nor  any  cluster  of  fine  images, 

Nor  any  missing  of  their  figured  dance 

By  blundering  molecules.     Analysis 

May  show  you  the  right  jjhysic  for  the  ill. 

Teaching  the  molecules  to  find  their  dance. 

But  sjiare  me  3''our  analogies,  that  hold 

Such  insight  as  the  figure  of  a  crow 

And  bar  of  music  put  to  signify 

A  crowbar.^' 

Said  the  Priest,  "There  I  agree — 
Would  add  that  sacramental  grace  is  grace 
Which  to  be  known  must  first  be  felt,  with  all 
The  strengthening  influxes  that  come  by  prayer. 
I  note  this  passingly — would  not  delay 
The  conversation's  tenor,  save  to  liint 
That  taking  stand  with  Rosencranz  one  sees 
Final  equivalence  of  all  we  name 
Our  Good  and  111 — their  difference  meanwhile 
Being  inborn  prejudice  that  plumps  you  down 
An  Ego,  brings  a  weight  into  your  scale 
Forcing  a  standard.     Tliat  resistless  weight 
Obstinate,  irremovable  by  thought. 
Persisting  through  disproof,  an  ache,  a  need 
That  spaceless  stays  where  sharp  analysis 
Has  shown  a  j)lenum  filled  without  it — what 
If  this,  to  use  your  phrase,  were  just  that  Being 
Not  looking  solely,  grasping  from  the  dark. 
Weighing  the  difference  you  call  Ego?     This 
Gives  you  persistence,  regulates  the  flux 
With  strict  relation  rooted  in  tlie  All. 
Who  is  he  of  your  late  philosophers 
17 


258  A   COLLEGE    BKEAKFAST-PAKTY. 

Takes  the  true  name  of  Being  to  be  Will? 
I — nay,  the  Church  objects  nought,  is  content: 
Reason  has  reached  its  utmost  negative. 
Physic  and  metaphysic  meet  in  the  inane 
And  backward  shrink  to  intense  prejudice. 
Making  their  absolute  and  homogene 
A  loaded  relative,  a  choice  to  be 
Whatever  is — supposed,  a  What  is  not. 
The  Church  demands  no  more,  has  standing  room 
And  basis  fol*  her  doctrine:  this  (no  more) — 
That  the  strong  bias  which  we  name  the  Soul, 
Though  fed  and  clad  by  dissoluble  waves 
Has  antecedent  quality,  and  rules 
By  veto  or  consent  the  strife  of  thought, 
Making  arbitrament  that  we  call  faith," 
Here  was  brief  silence,  till  young  Hamlet  spoke. 
'^  I  crave  direction,  Father,  how  to  know 
The  sign  of  that  imperative  whose  right 
To  sway  my  act  in  face  of  thronging  doubts 
Were  an  oracular  gem  in  price  beyond 
Urim  and  Thummim  lost  to  Israel. 
That  bias  of  tlie  soul,  that  conquering  die 
Loaded  with  golden  emphasis  of  Will — 
How  find  it  where  resolve,  once  made,  becomes 
The  rash  exclusion  of  an  opposite 
Which  draws  the  stronger  as  I  turn  aloof." 

'*  I  think  I  hear  a  bias  in  your  words," 
The  Priest  said  mildly, — "that  strong  natural  bent 
Which  we  call  hunger.     What  more  jDOsitive 
Than  appetite? — of  spirit  or  of  flesh, 
I  care  not — '  sense  of  need '  were  truer  phrase. 
You  hunger  for  authoritative  right. 
And  yet  discern  no  difference  of  tones. 
No  weight  of  rod  that  marks  imperial  rule? 
Laertes  granting,  I  will  put  your  case 
In  analogic  form:  the  doctors  hold 
Hunger  which  gives  no  relish — save  caprice 
That  tasting  venison  fancies  mellow  pears — 
A  symptom  of  disorder,  and  ])rescribe 
Strict  discipline.     Were  I  physician  here 
I  would  prescribe  that  exercise  of  soul 
Which  lies  in  full  obedience:  you  ask. 
Obedience  to  what?     The  answer  lies 
Within  the  word  itself;  for  how  obey 


A    COLLEGE    BKEAKFAST-PARTT.  259 

What  has  no  rule,  asserts  no  absohite  claim? 

Take  inclination,  taste — wh}^  that  is  you. 

No  rule  above  you.     Science,  reasoning 

On  nature's  order — they  exist  and  move 

Solely  by  disputation,  hold  no  pledge 

Of  final  consequence,  but  push  the  swing 

Where  Epicurus  and  the  Stoic  sit 

In  endless  see-saw.     One  authority, 

And  only  one,  says  simply  this.  Obey: 

Place  yourself  in  that  current  (test  it  so!) 

Of  spiritual  order  where  at  least 

Lies  promise  of  a  high  communion, 

A  Head  informing  members,  Life  that  breathes 

With  gift  of  forces  over  and  above 

The  jo/ms  of  arithmetic  interchange. 

'The  ChurcJi  too  has  a  body,'  you  object, 

*  Can  be  dissected,  put  beneath  the  lens 
And  shown  the  merest  continuity 
Of  all  existence  else  beneath  the  sun,' 
I  grant  you;  but  the  lens  will  not  disi^rove 
A  presence  which  eludes  it.     Take  your  wit. 
Your  highest  passion,  widest-reaching  thought: 
Show  their  conditions  if  you  will  or  can, 
But  though  you  saw  the  final  atom -dance 
Making  each  molecule  that  stands  for  sign 
Of  love  being  present,  where  is  stil?  your  love? 
How  measure  that,  how  certify  its  weight? 
And  so  I  say,  the  body  of  the  Church 
Carries  a  Presence,  promises  and  gifts 
Never  disproved — whose  argument  is  found 
In  lasting  failure  of  the  search  elsewhere 
For  what  it  holds  to  satisfy  man's  need. 
But  I  grow  lengthy:  my  excuse  must  be 
Your   question,    Hamlet,    which    has    probed    right 

through 
To  the  pith  of  our  belief.     And  I  have  robbed 
Myself  of  pleasure  as  a  listener. 
'Tis  noon,  I  see;  and  my  appointmeiit  stands 
For  half-past  twelve  with  Voltimand.     Good-bye." 

Brief  parting,  brief  regret — sincere,  but  quenched 
In  fumes  of  best  Havana,  which  consoles 
For  lack  of  other  certitude.     Then  said. 
Mildly  sarcastic,  quiet  Guildenstern: 
**  I  marvel  how  the  Father  gave  new  charm 


260  A   COLLEGE    BEEAKFAST-PARTY. 

To  weak  conclusions:  I  was  half  convinced 
The  poorest  reasoner  made  the  finest  man, 
And  held  his  logic  lovelier  for  its  limp." 

*'  I  fain  would  hear,"  said  Hamlet,  "  how  you  find 
A  stronger  footing  than  the  Father  gave. 
How  base  your  self-resistance  save  on  faith 
In  some  invisible  Order,  higher  Right 
Than  changing  impulse.     What  does  Eeason  bid? 
To  take  a  fullest  rationality 
What  offers  best  solution:  so  the  Church. 
Science,  detecting  hydrogen  aflame 
Outside  our  firmament,  leaves  mystery 
Whole  and  untouched  beyond;  nay,  in  our  blood 
And  in  the  potent  atoms  of  each  germ 
The  Secret  lives — envelops,  penetrates 
Whatever  sense  perceives  or  thought  divines. 
Science,  whose  soul  is  explanatiou,  halts 
With  hostile  front  at  mystery.     The  Church 
Takes  mystery  as  her  empire,  brings  its  wealth 
Of  possibility  to  fill  the  void 
""Twixt  contradictions — warrants  so  a  faith 
Defying  sense  and  all  its  ruthless  train 
Of  arrogant  '  Theref ores.'     Science  with  her  lens 
Dissolves  the  Forms  that  made  the  other  half 
Of  all  our  love,  which  thenceforth  widowed  lives 
To  gaze  with  maniac  stare  at  what  is  not. 
The  Church  explains  not,  governs — feeds  resolve 
By  vision  fraught  with  heart-experience 
And  human  yearning." 

"  Ay,"  said  Guildenstern, 
With  friendly  nod,  "the  Father,  I  can  see, 
Has  caught  you  up  in  his  air-chariot. 
His  thought  takes  rainbow-bridges,  out  of  reach 
By  solid  obstacles,  evaporates 
The  coarse  and  common  into  subtilties. 
Insists  that  what  is  real  in  the  Church 
Is  something  out  of  evidence,  and  begs 
(Just  in  parenthesis)  you'll  never  mind 
What  stares  you  in  the  face  and  bruises  you. 
Why,  by  his  method  I  could  justify 
Each  siiperstition  and  each  tyranny 
That  ever  rode  upon  the  back  of  man. 
Pretending  fitness  for  his  sole  defense 


A    COLLEGE    BREAKFAST-PARTY.  261 

Against  life's  evil.     How  can  aught  subsist 
That  holds  no  theory  of  gain  or  good  ? 
Despots  with  terror  in  their  red  right  hand 
Must  argue  good  to  helpers  and  themselves. 
Must  let  submission  hold  a  core  of  gain 
To  make  their  slaves  choose  life.     Their  theory. 
Abstracting  inconvenience  of  racks, 
Whip-lashes,  dragonnades  and  all  things  coarse 
Inherent  in  the  fact  or  concrete  mass, 
Presents  the  pure  idea — utmost  good  * 

Secured  by  Order  only  to  he  found 
In  strict  subordination,  hierarchy 
Of  forces  where,  by  nature's  law,  the  strong 
Has  rightful  empire,  rule  of  weaker  proved 
Mere  dissolution.     What  can  you  object? 
The  Inquisition — if  you  turn  away 
From  narrow  notice  how  the  scent  of  gold 
Has  guided  sense  of  damning  heresy — 
The  Inquisition  is  sublime,  is  love 
Hindering  the  spread  of  poison  in  men's  souls: 
The  flames  are  nothing:  only  smaller  pain 
Te  hinder  greater,  or  the  pain  of  one 
To  save  the  many,  such  as  throbs  at  heart 
Of  every  system  born  into  the  world. 
So  of  the  Church  as  high  communion 
Of  Head  witli  members,  fount  of  spirit  force 
Beyond  the  calculus,  and  carrying  proof 
In  her  sole  power  to  satisfy  man's  need: 
That  seems  ideal  truth  as  clear  as  lines 
That,  necessary  though  invisible,  trace 
The  balance  of  the  planets  and  the  sun — 
Until  I  find  a  hitch  in  that  last  claim. 
*  To  satisfy  man's  need.'     Sir,  that  depends: 
We  settle  first  the  measure  of  man's  need 
Before  we  grant  capacity  to  fill. 
John,  James,  or  Tliomas,  you  may  satisfy: 
But  since  you  choose  ideals  I  demand 
Your  Church  sluill  satisf}^  ideal  man. 
His  utmost  reason  and  his  utmost  love. 
And  say  these  rest  a-hungered — find  no  scheme 
Content  them  both,  but  hold  the  world  accursed, 
A  Calvary  where  Keason  mocks  at  Love, 
And  Love  forsaken  sends  out  orphan  cries 
Hopeless  of  answer;  still  the  soul  remains 
Larger,  diviner  than  your  half-way  Church, 


263  A   COLLEGE    BREAKFAST-PARTY. 

Which  racks  your  reason  into  false  consent. 
And  soothes  your  Love  with  sops  of  selfishness/' 

'*  There  I  am  with  jon,"  cried  Laertes.     "  What 
To  me  are  any  dictates,  though  they  came 
With  thunders  from  the  Mount,  if  still  within 
I  see  a  higher  Right,  a  higher  Good 
Compelling  love  and  worship?     Though  the  earth 
Held  force  electric  to  discern  and  kill 
Each  thinking  rebel — what  is  martyrdom 
But  death-defying  utterance  of  belief, 
Which  being  mine  remains  my  truth  supreme 
Though  solitary  as  the  throb  of  pain 
Lying  outside  the  pulses  of  the  world? 
Obedience  is  good:  ay,  but  to  what? 
And  for  what  ends?     For  say  that  I  rebel 
Against  your  rule  as  devilish,  or  as  rule 
Of  thunder-guiding  powers  that  deny 
Man's  highest  benefit:  rebellion  then 
Were  strict  obedience  to  another  rule 
Which  bids  me. flout  your  thunder." 

**  Lo  you  now!" 

Said  Osric,  delicately,  "  how  you  come, 

Laertes  mine,  with  all  your  warring  zeal 

As  Python-slayer  of  the  present  age — 

Cleansing  all  social  swamps  by  darting  rays 

Of  dubious  doctrine,  hot  with  energy 

Of  private  judgment  and  disgust  for  doubt — 

To  state  my  thesis,  which  you  most  abhor 

When  sung  in  Daphnis-notes  beneath  the  pines 

To  gentle  rush  of  waters.     Your  belief — 

In  essence,  what  is  it  but  simple  Taste? 

I  urge  with  you  exemption  from  all  claims 

That  come  from  other  than  my  proper  will. 

An  Ultimate  within  to  balance  yours, 

A  solid  meeting  you,  excluding  you. 

Till  you  show  fuller  force  by  entering 

My  spiritual  space  and  crushing  Me 

To  a  subordinate  complement  of  You: 

Such  ultimate  must  stand  alike  for  all. 

Preach  your  crusade,  then:  all  will  join  who  like 

The  hurly-burly  of  aggressive  creeds; 

Still  your  unpleasant  Ought,  your  itch  to  choose 

What  grates  upon  the  sense,  is  simply  Taste, 


A    COLLEGE    BREAKFAST-PARTY.  2G3 

Differs,  I  think,  from  mine  (permit  the  word. 
Discussion  forces  it)  in  being  bad/^ 

The  tone  was  too  polite  to  breed  offense. 
Showing  a  tolerance  of  what  Avas  "  bad" 
Becoming  courtiers.     Louder  Eosencranz 
Took  up  the  ball  with  rougher  movement,  wont 
To  show  contempt  for  doting  reasoners 
Who  hugged  some  reasons  with  a  preference. 
As  warm  Laertes  did:  he  gave  five  puffs 
Intolerantly  skeptical,  then  said, 
''Your  human  good,  which  you  would  make  supreme. 
How  do  you  know  it?     Has  it  shown  its  face 
In  adamantine  type,  with  features  clear. 
As  this  republic,  or  that  monarchy? 
As  federal  grouping  or  municipal? 
Equality,  or  finely  shaded  lines 
Of  social  difference?  ecstatic  whirl 
And  draught  intense  of  passionate  joy  and  pain. 
Or  sober  self-control  that  starves  its  youth 
And  lives  to  wonder  what  the  world  calls  joy? 
Is  it  in  sympathy  that  shares  men's  pangs. 
Or  in  cool  brains  that  can  explain  them  well? 
Is  it  in  labor  or  in  laziness? 
In  training  for  the  tug  of  rivalry 
To  be  admired,  or  in  the  admiring  soul? 
In  risk  or  certitude?     In  battling  rage 
And  hardy  challenges  of  Protean  luck. 
Or  in  a  sleek  and  rural  apathy 
Full  fed  with  sameness?     Pray  define  your  Good 
Beyond  rejection  by  majority; 
Next,  how  it  may  subsist  without  tne  111 
Which  seems  its  only  outline.     Show  a  world 
Of  pleasure  not  resisted;  or  a  world 
Of  pressure  equalized,  yet  various 
In  action  formative;  for  that  will  serve 
As  illustration  of  your  human  good — 
Which  at  its  perfecting  (your  goal  of  hope) 
Will  not  be  straight  extinct,  or  fall  to  sleep 
In  the  deep  bosom  of  the  Unchangeable. 
What  will  you  work  for,  then,  and  call  it  good 
With  full  and  certain  vision — good  for  aught 
Save  partial  ends  which  liappen  to  be  yours? 
How  Avill  you  get  your  stringency  to  bind 
Thought  or  desire  in  demonstrated  tracks 


264  A   COLLEGE   BREAKFAST-PARTY.  1 

Which  are  but  waves  within  a  balanced  whole? 
Is  '  relative '  the  magic  word  that  turns 
Your  flux  mercurial  of  good  to  gold? 
Why,  that  analysis  at  which  you  rage 
As  anti-social  force  that  sweeps  you  down 
The  world  in  one  cascade  of  molecules. 
Is  brother  '  relative ' — and  grins  at  you 
Like  any  convict  whom  you  thought  to  send 
Outside  society,  till  this  enlarged 
And  meant  New  England  and  Australia  too. 
The  Absolute  is  your  shadow,  and  the  space 
Which  you  say  might  be  real,  were  you  milled 
To  curves  pellicular,  the  thinnest  thin. 
Equation  of  no  thickness,  is  still  you/' 

"  Abstracting  all  that  makes  him  clubbable, '* 
Horatio  interposed.      But  Rosencranz, 
Deaf  as  the  angry  turkey-cock  whose  ears 
Are  plugged  by  swollen  tissue  when  he  scolds 
At  men's  pretensions:  "Pooh,  your  'Relative' 
Shuts  you  in,  hopeless,  with  your  progeny 
As  in  a  Hunger-tower;  your  social  good. 
Like  other  deities  by  turn  supreme, 
Is  transient  reflex  of  a  prejudice, 
Anthology  of  causes  and  effects 
To  suit  the  mood  of  fanatics  who  lead 
The  mood  of  tribes  or  nations.     I  admit 
If  you  could  show  a  sword,  nay,  chance  of  sword 
Hanging  conspicuous  to  their  inward  eyes 
With  edge  so  constant  threatening  as  to  sway 
All  greed  and  lust  by  terror;  and  a  law 
Clear-writ  and  proven  as  the  law  supreme 
Which  that  dread  sword  enforces — then  your  Right. 
Duty,  or  social  Grood,  were  it  once  brought 
To  common  measure  with  the  potent  law, 
Would  dip  the  scale,  would  put  unchanging  marks 
Of  wisdom  or  of  folly  on  each  deed. 
And  warrant  exhortation.     Until  then. 
Where  is  your  standard  or  criterion? 

*  What  always,  everywhere,  by  all  men' — why 
That  were  but  Custom,  and  your  system  needs 
Ideals  never  yet  incorporate, 
The  imminent  doom  of  Custom.     Can  you  find 
Appeal  beyond  the  sentience  in  each  man? 
Frighten  the  blind  with  scarecrows?  raise  an  awe 


A   COLLEGE    BREAKFAST-PARTY.  265 

Of  things  unseen  where  appetite  commands 

Chambers  of  imagery  in  the  soul 

At  all  its  avenues? — You  chant  your  hymns 

To  Evolution,  on  your  altar  lay 

A  sacred  egg  called  Progress:  have  you  proved 

A  Best  unique  where  all  is  relative, 

And  where  each  change  is  loss  as  well  as  gain? 

The  age  of  healthy  Saurians,  well  supplied 

With  heat  and  prey,  will  balance  well  enough 

A  human  age  where  maladies  are  strong 

And  pleasures  feeble;  wealth  a  monster  gorged 

Mid  hungry  populations;  intellect 

Aproned  in  laboratories,  bent  on  proof 

That  tJiis  is  that  and  both  are  good  for  naught 

Save  feeding  error  through  a  weary  life; 

While  Art  and  Poesy  struggle  like  poor  ghosts 

To  hinder  cock-crow  and  the  dreadful  light. 

Lurking  in  darkness  and  the  charnel-house. 

Or  like  two  stalwart  graybeards,  imbecile 

With  limbs  still  active,  playing  at  belief 

That  hunt  the  slipper,  foot-ball,  hide-and-seek. 

Are  sweetly  merry,  donning  pinafores 

And  lisping  emulously  in  their  speech. 

0  human  race!     Is  this  then  all  thy  gain? — 

Working  at  disproof,  playiug  at  belief. 

Debate  on  causes,  distaste  of  effects, 

Power  to  transmute  all  elements,  and  lack 

Of  any  power  to  sway  the  fatal  skill 

And  make  thy  lot  aught  else  than  rigid  doom? 

The  Saurians  were  better, — Guildenstern, 

Pass  me  the  taper.     Still  the  human  curse 

Has  mitigation  in  the  best  cigars." 

Then  swift  Laertes,  not  without  a  glare 

Of  leonine  wrath,  "I  thank  thee  for  that  word: 

That  one  confession,  were  I  Socrates, 

Should  force  you  onward  till  you  ran  your  head 

At  your  own  image — flatly  gave  the  lie 

To  all  your  blasphemy  of  that  human  good 

Which  bred  and  nourished  you  to  sit  at  ease 

And  learnedly  deny  it.     Say  the  world 

Groans  ever  with  the  pangs  of  doubtful  births: 

Say,  life's  a  poor  donation  at  the  best — 

Wisdom  a  yearning  after  nothingness — 

Nature's  great  vision  and  the  thrill  supreme 

Of  thought-fed  passion  but  a  weary  play — 


366  A   COLLEGE   BREAKFAST-PAKTY. 

I  argue  not  against  yon.     Who  can  prove    . 

Wit  to  be  witty  when  the  deeper  ground 

Dullness  intuitive  declares  wit  dull? 

If  life  is  worthless  to  you — why,  it  is. 

You  only  know  how  little  love  you  feel 

To  give  you  fellowship,  how  little  force 

Eesponsive  to  the  quality  of  things. 

Then  end  your  life,  throw  off  the  unsought  yoke 

If  not — if  you  remain  to  taste  cigars, 

Choose  racy  diction,  perorate  at  large 

With  tacit  scorn  of  meaner  men  who  win 

No  wreath  or  tripos — then  admit  at  least 

A  possible  Better  in  the  seeds  of  earth; 

Acknowledge  debt  to  that  laborious  life 

Which,  sifting  evermore  the  mingled  seeds, 

Testing  the  Possible  with  patient  skill, 

And  daring  ill  in  presence  of  a  good 

For  futures  to  inherit,  made  your  lot 

One  you  would  choose  rather  than  end  it,  nay. 

Rather  than,  say,  some  twenty  million  lots 

Of  fellow-Britons  toiling  all  to  make 

That  nation,  that  community,  whereon 

You  feed  and  thrive  and  talk  philosophy. 

I  am  no  optimist  whose  fate  must  hang 

On  hard  pretense  that  pain  is  beautiful 

And  agony  explained  for  men  at  ease 

By  virtue's  exercise  in  pitying  it. 

But  this  I  hold:  that  he  who  takes  one  gift 

Made  for  him  by  the  hopeful  work  of  man, 

Who  tastes  sweet  bread,  walks  where  he  will  unarmed, 

His  shield  and  warrant  the  invisible  law. 

Who  owns  a  hearth  and  household  charities. 

Who  clothes  his  body  and  his  sentient  soul 

With  skill  and  thoughts  of  men,  and  yet  denies 

A  human  good  worth  toiling  for,  is  cursed 

With  worse  negation  than  the  poet  feigned 

In  Mephistopheles.     The  Devil  spins 

His  wire-drawn  argument  against  all  good 

With  sense  of  brimstone  as  his  private  lot. 

And  never  drew  a  solace  from  the  earth. ^* 


Laertes  fuming  paused,  and  Guildenstern 
Took  up  with  cooler  skill  the  fusillade; 
I  meet  your  deadliest  challenge,  Rosencranz — 
Where  get,  you  say,  a  binding  law,  a  rule 


A    COLLEGE    BKEAKFAST-PARTY  267 

Enforced  by  sanction,  an  ideal  throned 

With  thnnder  in  its  hand?     I  answer,  there 

Whence  every  faith  and  rnle  has  drawn  its  force 

Since  human  consciousness  awaking  owned 

An  outward,  whose  unconquerable  sway 

Eesisted  first  and  then  subdued  desire 

By  pressure  of  the  dire  impossible. 

Urging  to  possible  ends  the  active  soul 

And  shaping  so  its  terror  and  its  love. 

Why,  you  have  said  it — threats  and  promises 

Depend  on  each  man's  sentience  for  their  force; 

All  sacred  rules,  imagined  or  revealed. 

Can  have  no  form  or  potency  apart 

From  the  percipient  and  emotive  mind. 

God,  duty,  love,  submission,  fellowship, 

Must  first  be  framed  in  man,  as  music  is. 

Before  they  live  outside  him  as  a  law. 

And  still  they  grow  and  shape  themselves  anew. 

With  fuller  concentration  in  their  life 

Of  inward  and  of  outward  energies. 

Blending  to  make  the  last  result  called  man. 

Which  means,  not  this  or  that  philosopher 

Looking  through  beauty  into  blank  ness,  not 

The  swindler  who  has  sent  his  fruitful  lie 

By  the  last  telegram;  it  means  the  tide 

Of  needs  reciprocal,  toil,  trust,  and  love — 

The  surging  multitude  of  human  claims 

Which  make  "a  presence  not  to  be  put  by'* 

Above  the  horizon  of  the  general  soul. 

Is  inward  reason  shrunk  to  subtleties. 

And  inward  wisdom  pining  passion-starved? 

The  outward  reason  has  the  world  in  store, 

Eegenerates  passion  with  the  stress  of  want, 

Eegenerates  knowledge  with  discovery. 

Shows  sly  rapacious  self  a  blunderer. 

Widens  dependence,  knits  the  social  whole 

In  sensible  relation  more  defined. 

Do  boards  and  dirty-handed  millionaires 

Govern  the  planetary  system — sway 

The  pressure  of  the  Universe — decide 

That  man  henceforth  shall  retrogr^sss  to  ape, 

Emptied  of  every  sympathetic  thrill 

The  all  has  wrought  up  in  him?  dam  up  henceforth 

The  flood  of  human  claims  as  private  force 

To  turn  their  wheels  and  make  a  private  hell  , 


268  A   COLLEGE    BEEAKFAST-PAETY. 

For  fishpond  to  their  mercantile  domain? 

What  are  they  but  a  parasitic  growth 

On  the  vast  real  and  ideal  world 

Of  man  and  nature  blent  in  one  divine? 

Why,  take  your  closing  dirge — say  evil  grows 

And  good  is  dwindling;  science  mere  decay, 

Mere  dissolution  of  ideal  wholes 

Which  through  the  ages  past  alone  have  made 

The  earth  and  firmament  of  human  faith; 

Say,  the  small  arc  of  being  we  call  man 

Is  near  its  mergence,  what  seems  growing  life 

Nought  but  a  hurrying  change  toward  lower  types. 

The  ready  runkness  of  degeneracy. 

Well,  they  who  mourn  for  the  world's  dying  good 

May  take  their  common  sorrows  for  a  rock. 

On  it  erect  religion  and  a  church, 

A  worship,  rites,  and  passionate  piety — 

The  worship  of  the  best  though  crucified 

And  God-forsaken  in  its  dying  pangs; 

The  sacramental  rites  of  fellowship 

In  common  woe;  visions  that  purify 

Through  admiration  and  despairing  love 

Which  keep  their  spiritual  life  intact 

Beneath  the  murderous  clutches  of  disproof 

And  feed  a  martyr-strength." 

^'Eeligion  high!'* 
(Eosencranz  here)  ''but  with  communicants 
Few  as  the  cedars  upon  Lebanon — 
A  child  might  count  them.    What  the  world  demands 
Is  faith  coercive  of  the  multitude." 

*'  Tush,  Guildenstern,  you  granted  him  too  much," 
Burst  in  Laertes;  "I  will  never  grant 
One  inch  of  law  to  feeble  blasphemies 
Which  hold  no  higher  ratio  to  life — 
Full  vigorous  human  life  that  peopled  earth 
And  wrought  and  fought  and  loved  and  bravely  died 
Than  the  sick  morning  glooms  of  debauchees. 
Old  nations  breed  old  children,  wizened  babes 
Whose  youth  is  languid  and  incredulous. 
Weary  of  life  without  the  will  to  die; 
Their  passions  visionary  appetites 
Of  bloodless  spectres  wailing  that  the  world 
Far  lack  of  substance  slips  from  out  their  grasp; 


A    COLLEOE    BREAKFAST-PAETT.  269 

Their  thoughts  the  withered  husks  of  all  things  dead. 
Holding  no  force  of  germs  instinct  with  life. 
Which  never  hesitates  but  moves  and  grows. 
Yet  hear  them  boast  in  screams  their  godlike  ill. 
Excess  of  knowing!     Fie  on  you,  Eosencranz! 
You  lend  your  brams  and  fine-dividing  tongue 
For  bass-notes  to  this  shriveled  crudity. 
This  immature  decrepitude  that  strains 
To  fill  our  ears  and  claim  the  prize  of  strength 
For  mere  unmanliness.     Out  on  them  all! — 
Wits,  puling  minstrels,  and  philosophers, 
Who  living  softly  prate  of  suicide. 
And  suck  the  commonwealth  to  feed  their  ease 
While  they  vent  epigrams  and  threnodies. 
Mocking  or  wailing  all  the  eager  work 
Which  makes  that  public  store  whereon  they  feed. 
Is  wisdom  flattened  sense  and  mere  distaste? 
Why,  any  superstition  warm  with  love, 
Inspired  with  purpose,  wild  with  energy 
That  streams  resistless  through  its  ready  frame. 
Has  more  of  human  truth  within  its  life 
Than  souls  that  look  through  color  into  naught, — 
Whose  brain,  too  unimpassioned  for  delight. 
Has  feeble  ticklings  of  a  vanity 
Which  finds  the  universe  beneath  its  mark. 
And  scorning  the  blue  heavens  as  merely  blue 
Can  only  say,  '  What  then  ? ' — pre-eminent 
In  wondrous  want  of  likeness  to  their  kind. 
Founding  that  worship  of  sterility 
Whose  one  sui^reme  is  vacillating  Will 
Which  makes  the  Light,  then  says,  '^Twere  better 
not.'" 

Here  rash  Laertes  brought  his  Handel-strain 
As  of  some  angry  Polypheme,  to  pause; 
And  Osric,  shocked  at  ardors  out  of  taste, 
Eelieved  the  audience  with  a  tenor  voice 
And  delicate  delivery. 

"  For  me, 
I  range  myself  in  line  with  Rosencranz 
Against  all  schemes,  religious  or  profane. 
That  flaunt  a  Good  as  pretext  for  a  lash 
To  flog  us  all  who  have  the  better  taste. 
Into  conformity,  requiring  me 
At  peril  of  the  thong  and  sharp  disgrace 


270  A   COLLEGE    BREAKFAST-PARTY. 

To  care  how  mere  Philistines  pass  their  lives; 

Whether  the  English  joauper-total  grows 

From  one  to  two  before  the  naughts;  how  far 

Teuton  will  outbreed  Eoman;  if  the  class 

Of  proletaires  will  make  a  federal  band 

To  bind  all  Europe  and  America, 

Throw,  in  their  wrestling,  every  government. 

Snatch  the  world's  purse  and  keep  the  guillotine: 

Or  else  (admitting  these  are  casualties) 

Driving  my  soul  with  scientific  hail 

That  shuts  the  landscape  out  with  particles; 

Insisting  that  the  Palingenesis 

Means  telegraphs  and  measure  of  the  rate 

At  which  the  stars  move — nobody  knows  where. 

So  far,  my  Rosencranz,  we  are  at  one. 

But  not  when  you  bhispheme  the  life  of  Art, 

The  sweet  perennial  youth  of  Poesy, 

Which  asks  no  logic  but  its  sensuous  growth, 

No  risrht  but  loveliness;  which  fearless  strolls 

Betwixt  the  burning  mountain  and  the  sea. 

Reckless  of  earthquake  and  the  lava  stream. 

Filling  its  hour  with  beauty.     It  knows  naught 

Of  bitter  strife,  denial,  grim  resolve. 

Sour  resignation,  busy  emphasis 

Of  fresli  illusions  named  the  new-born  True, 

Old  Error's  latest  child;  but  as  a  lake 

Images  all  things,  yet  within  its  depths 

Dreams  them  all  lovelier  —  thrills  with  sound 

And  makes  a  harj^  of  plenteous  liquid  chords  — 

So  Art  or  Poesy:  we  its  votaries 

Are  the  Olympians,  fortunately  born 

From  the  elemental  mixture;  'tis  our  lot 

To  pass  more  swiftly  than  the  Delian  God, 

But  still  the  earth  breaks  into  flowers  for  us. 

And  mortal  sorrows  when  they  reach  our  ears 

Are  dying  falls  to  melody  divine. 

Hatred,  war,  vice,  crime,  sin,  those  human  storms. 

Cyclones,  floods,  what  you  will — outbursts  of  force — 

Feed  art  with  contrast,  give  the  grander  touch 

To  the  master's  pencil  and  the  poet's  song. 

Serve  as  Vesuvian  fires  or  navies  tossed 

On  yawning  waters,  which  when  viewed  afar 

Deepen  the  calm  sublime  of  those  choice  souls 

Who  keep  the  heights  of  poesy,  and  turn 

A  fleckless  mirror  to  the  various  world. 


A    COLLEGE    BREAKFAST-PARTY.  271 

Giving  its  many-named  and  fitfnl  flux 
An  imaged,  harmless,  spiritual  life, 
With  pure  selection,  native  to  art's  frame. 
Of  beauty  only,  save  its  minor  scale 
Of  ill  and  pain  to  give  the  ideal  Joy 
A  keener  edge.     This  is  a  mongrel  globe; 
All  finer  being  wrought  from  its  coarse  earth 
Is  but  accepted  privilege:  what  else 
Your  boasted  virtue,  which  proclaims  itself 
A  good  above  the  average  consciousness? 
Nature  exists  by  partiality 
,  (Each  planet's  poise  must  carry  two  extremes 
With  verging  breadths  of  minor  wretchedness): 
We  are  her  favoi'ites  and  accept  our  wings. 
For  your  accusal,  Rosencranz,  that  art 
Shares  in  the  dread  and  weakness  of  the  time, 
I  hold  it  null;  since  art  or  poesy  pure. 
Being  blameless  by  all  standards  save  her  own. 
Takes  no  account  of  modern  or  antique 
In  morals,  science,  or  philosophy: 
No  dull  elenchus  makes  a  yoke  for  her. 
Whose  law  and  measure  are  the  sweet  consent 
Of  sensibilities  that  move  apart 
From  rise  or  fall  of  systems,  states  or  creeds  — 
Apart  from  what  Philistines  call  man's  weal." 

*'Ay,  we  all  know  those  votaries  of  the  Muse 
Ravished  with  singing  till  they  quite  forgot 
Their  manhood,  sang,  and  ga^jed,  and  took  no  food. 
Then  died  of  emptiness,  and  for  reward 
Lived  on  as  grasshoj)pers "  —  Laertes  thus: 
But  then  he  checked  himself  as  one  who  feels 
His  muscles  dangerous,  and  Guildenstern 
Filled  up  the  pause  with  calmer  confidence. 

"You  use  your  wings,  my  Osric,  poise  yourself 
Safely  outside  all  reach  of  argument. 
Then  dogmatise  at  will  (a  method  known 
To  ancient  women  and  philosophers, 
Nay,  to  Philistines  whom  you  most  abhor); 
Else,  could  an  arrow  reach  you,  I  should  ask 
Whence  came  taste,  beauty,  sensibilities 
Refined  to  preference  infallible? 
Doubtless,  ye're  gods  —  these  odors  ye  inhale, 
A  sacrificial  scent.     But  how,  I  pray, 


272  A   COLLEGE    BREAKFAST-PARTY. 

Are  odors  made,  if  not  by  gradual  change 

Of  sense  or  substance?    Is  your  beautiful 

A  seedless,  rootless  flower,  or  has  it  grown 

With  human  growth,  which  means  the  rising  sum. 

Of  human  struggle,  order,  knowledge?  —  sense 

Trained  to  a  fuller  record,  more  exact  — 

To  truer  guidance  of  each  passionate  force? 

Get  me  your  roseate  flesh  without  the  blood; 

Get  fine  aromas  without  structure  wrought 

From  simpler  being  into  manifold: 

Then  and  then  only  flaunt  your  Beautiful 

As  what  can  live  apart  from  thought,  creeds,  states. 

Which  mean  life's  structure.     Osric,  I  beseech  — 

The  infallible  should  be  more  catholic  — 

Join  in  a  war-dance  with  the  cannibals. 

Hear  Chinese  music,  love  a  face  tattooed. 

Give  adoration  to  a  pointed  skull. 

And  think  the  Hindu  Siva  looks  divine: 

'Tis  art,  'tis  poesy.     Say,  you  object: 

How  came  you  by  that  lofty  dissidence. 

If  not  through  changes  in  the  social  man 

Widening  his  consciousness  from  Here  and  Now 

To  larger  wholes  beyond  the  reach  of  sense; 

Controlling  to  a  fuller  harmony 

The  thrill  of  passion  and  the  rule  of  fact; 

And  paling  false  ideals  in  the  light 

Of  full-rayed  sensibilities  which  blend 

Truth  and  desire?     Taste,  beauty,  Avhat  are  they 

But  the  souFs  choice  toward  perfect  bias  wrought 

By  finer  balance  of  a  fuller  growth — 

Sense  brought  to  subtlest  metamorphosis 

Through  love,  thought,  joy — the  general  human  store 

Which  grows  from  all  life's  functions?     As  the  plant 

Holds  its  corolla,  purple,  delicate. 

Solely  as  outflush  of  that  energy 

Which  moves  transformingiy  in  root  and  branch.-" 

Guildenstern  paused,  and  Hamlet  quivering 

Since  Osric  spoke,  in  transit  imminent 

From  catholic  striving  into  laxity. 

Ventured  his  word.     "Seems  to  me,  Guildenstern, 

Your  argument,  though  shattering  Osric's  point 

That  sensibilities  can  move  apart 

From  social. order,  yet  has  not  annulled 

His  thesis  that  the  life  of  poesy 


A    COLLEGE    BREAKFAST- PAKTY.  273 

(Admitting  it  must  grow  from  out  the  whole) 

Has  separate  functions,  a  transfigured  realm 

Freed  from  the  rigors  of  the  practical, 

Where  what  is  hidden  from  the  grosser  world — 

Stormed  down  by  roar  of  engines  and  the  shouts 

Of  eager  concourse — rises  beauteous 

As  voice  of  water-drops  in  sapphire  caves; 

A  realm  where  finest  spirits  have  free  sway 

In  exquisite  selection,  uncontrolled 

By  hard  material  necessity 

Of  cause  and  consequence.     For  you  will  grant 

The  Ideal  has  discoveries  which  ask 

No  test,  no  faith,  save  that  we  joy  in  them; 

A  new-found  continent,  with  spi'eading  lands 

Where  pleasure  charters  all,  where  virtue,  rank, 

Use,  right,  and  truth  have  but  one  name,  Delight. 

Thus  Art's  creations,  when  etherealized 

To  least  admixture  of  the  grosser  fact 

Delight  mav  stamp  as  highest." 

'^  Possible!'' 
Said  Guildenstern,  with  touch  of  weariness, 
"^'But  then  we  might  dispute  of  what  is  gross. 
What  high,  what  low." 

"  Nay,"  said  Laertes,  "  ask 
The  mightiest  makers  who  have  reigned,  still  reign 
Within  the  ideal  realm.     See  if  tlieir  thought 
Be  drained  of  practice  and  the  thick  warm  blood 
Of  hearts  that  beat  in  action  various 
Through  the  wide  drama  of  the  struggling  world. 
Good-bye,  Horatio." 

Each  now  said  "Good-bye." 
Such  breakfast,  such  beginning  of  the  day 
Is  more  than  half  the  whole.     The  sun  was  liot 
On  southward  branches  of  the  meadow  elms. 
The  shadows  slowly  farther  crept  and  veered 
Like  changing  memories,  and  Hamlet  strolled 
Alone  and  dubious  on  the  empurpled  path 
Between  the  waving  grasses  of  new  June 
Close  by  the  stream  where  well-compacted  boats 
Were  moored  or  moving  with  a  lazy  creak 
To  the  soft  dip  of  oars.     All  sounds  were  light 
As  tiny  silver  bells  upon  the  robes 
Of  hovering  silence.     Birds  made  twitterings 
That  seemed  but  Silence  self  o'erfull  of  love. 


274  A   COLLEGE    BREAKFAST-PAETY. 

'Twas  invitation  all  to  sweet  repose; 

And  Hamlet,  drowsy  with  the  mingled  draughts 

Of  cider  and  conflicting  sentiments. 

Chose  a  green  couch  and  watched  with  half -closed  eyes 

The  meadow-rOad,  the  stream  and  dreamy  lights, 

Until  they  merged  themselves  in  sequence  strange 

With  undulating  ether,  time,  the  soul. 

The  will  supreme,  the  individual  claim. 

The  social  Ought,  the  lyrist's  liberty, 

Democritus,  Pythagoras,  in  talk 

With  Anselm,  Darwin,  Comte,  and  Schopenhauer, 

The  poets  rising  slow  from  out  their  tombs 

Summoned  as  arbiters — that  border-world 

Of  dozing,  ere  the  sense  is  fully  locked. 

And  then  he  dreamed  a  dream  so  luminous 
He  woke  (he  says)  convinced;  but  what  it  taught 
Withholds  as  yet.     Perhaps  those  graver  shades 
Admonished  him  that  visions  told  in  haste 
Part  with  their  virtues  to  the  squandering  lips 
And  leave  the  soul  in  wider  emptiness. 


TWO  LOYEKS. 


Two  lovers  by  a  moss-grown  spring: 
They  leaned  soft  cheeks  together  there. 
Mingled  the  dark  and  sunny  hair. 
And  heard  the  wooing  thrushes  sing. 
0  budding  time! 
0  love's  blest  prime! 

Two  wedded  from  the  portal  stepped: 
The  bells  made  happy  carolings, 
The  air  was  soft  as  fanning  wings. 
White  petals  on  the  pathway  slept. 
0  pure-eyed  bride! 
0  tender  pride! 

Two  faces  o'er  a  cradle  bent: 

Two  hands  above  the  head  were  locked; 
These  pressed  each  other  while  they  rocked. 
Those  watched  a  life  that  love  had  sent. 
0  solemn  hour! 
0  hidden  power! 

Two  parents  by  the  evening  fire: 
The  red  light  fell  about  their  knees 
On  heads  that  rose  by  slow  degrees 
Like  buds  upon  the  lily  spire. 
0  patient  life! 
0  tender  strife! 

The  two  still  sat  together  there, 

The  red  light  shone  about  their  knees; 
But  all  the  heads  by  slow  degrees 
Had  gone  and  left  that  lonely  pair. 
0  voyage  fast! 
0  vanished  past! 

The  red  light  shone  upon  the  floor 

And  made  the  space  between  them  wide; 
They  drew  their  chairs  up  side  by  side. 
Their  pale  cheeks  joined,  and  said,  "Once  more!" 
0  memories! 
0  past  that  is! 
275 


SELF    AND  LIFE. 


Self. 

Changeful  comrade.  Life  of  mine. 

Before  we  two  must  part, 
I  will  tell  thee,  thou  shalt  say. 

What  thou  hast  been  and  art. 
Ere  I  lose  my  hold  of  thee  J 

Justify  thyself  to  me.  * 

Life. 

I  was  thy  warmth  upon  thy  mother's  knee 

When  light  and  love  within  her  eyes  were  one; 

We  laughed  together  by  the  laurel-tree, 

Culling  warm  daisies  'neath  the  sloping  sun; 

We  heard  the  chickens'  lazy  croon. 

Where  the  trellised  woodbines  grew. 
And  all  the  summer  afternoon 
Mystic  gladness  o'er  thee  threw. 
Was  it  person?     Was  it  thing? 
Was  it  touch  or  whispering? 
It  was  bliss  and  it  was  I: 
Bliss  was  what  thou  knew'st  me  by. 

Self. 

Soon  I  knew  thee  more  by  Fear 

And  sense  of  what  was  not. 
Haunting  all  I  held  most  dear; 

I  had  a  double  lot: 
Ardor,  cheated  with  alloy. 
Wept  the  more  for  dreams  of  joy. 

Life. 

Eemember  how  thy  ardor's  magic  sense 

Made  poor  things  rich  to  thee  and  small  things  great; 

How  hearth  and  garden,  field  and  bushy  fence. 
Were  thy  own  eager  love  incorporate; 

276 


SELF   AND    LIFE.  277 

And  how  the  solemn,  splendid  Past 

O'er  thy  early  widened  earth 
Made  grandeur,  as  on  sunset  cast 
Dark  elms  near  take  mighty  girth. 
Hands  and  feet  were  tiny  still 
When  we  knew  the  historic  thrill, 
Breathed  deep  breath  in  heroes  dead^ 
Tasted  the  immortals'  bread. 

Self. 

Seeing  what  I  might  have  been 

Reproved  the  thing  I  was, 
Smoke  on  heaven's  clearest  sheen. 

The  speck  within  the  rose. 
By  revered  ones'  frailties  stung 
Reverence  was  with  anguish  wrung. 

Life. 

But  all  thy  anguish  and  thy  discontent 
Was  growth  of  mine,  the  elemental  strife 

Toward  feeling  manifold  with  vision  blent 
To  wider  thought:  I  was  no  vulgar  life 

That,  like  the  water-mirrored  ape. 

Not  discerns  the  thing  it  sees, 
JSTor  knows  its  own  in  others'  shape. 
Railing,  scorning,  at  its  ease. 

Half  man's  trutli  must  hidden  lie 
If  unlit  by  Sorrov/'s  eye. 
I  by  Sorrow  wrought  in  thee 
Willing  pain  of  ministry. 

Self. 

Slowly  was  the  lesson  taught 

Through  passion,  error,  care; 
Insight  was  with  loathing  fraught 

And  effort  witli  despair. 
Written  on  the  wall  I  saw 
Bow!"  I  knew,  not  loved,  the  law. 

Life. 

But  then  I  brought  a  love  that  wrote  within 
The  law  of  gratitude,  and  made  thy  heart 


278  SELF   AND   LIFE. 

Beat  to  the  heavenly  tune  of  seraphin 
Whose  only  joy  in  having  is,  to  impart: 

Till  thou,  poor  Self — despite  thy  ire,  Jj 

Wrestling  'gainst  my  mingled  share, 
Thy  faults,  hard  falls,  and  vain  desire 
Still  to  be  what  others  were — 
Filled,  overflowed  with  tenderness 
Seeming  more  as  thou  wert  less, 
Knew  me  through  that  anguish  past 
As  a  fellowship  more  vast. 

Self. 

Yea,  I  embrace  thee,  changeful  Life! 

Far-sent,  unchosen  mate! 
Self  and  thou,  no  more  at  strife. 

Shall  wed  in  hallowed  state. 
Willing  spousals  now  shall  prove 
Life  is  justified  by  love. 


"SWEET  EYENINGS  COME  AND  GO,  LOVE. 


'  La  noche  biiena  se  viene. 

La  noche  buena  se  va, 
Y  nosotros  nos  iremos 
Y  no  volveremos  mas." 


-Old  ViUancico. 


Sweet  evenings  come  and  go,  love. 
They  came  and  went  of  yore: 

This  evening  of  our  life,  love, 
Shall  go  and  come  no  more. 

When  we  have  passed  away,  love. 
All  things  will  keep  their  name; 

But  yet  no  life  on  earth,  love, 
With  ours  will  be  the  same. 

The  daisies  will  be  there,  love. 
The  stars  in  heaven  will  shine: 

I  shall  not  feel  thy  wish,  love, 
Nor  thou  my  hand  in  thine. 

A  better  time  will  come,  love, 
And  better  souls  be  born: 

I  would  not  be  the  best,  love. 
To  leave  thee  now  forlorn. 
279 


THE  DEATH  OF  MOSES. 


Moses,  who  spake  with  God  as  with  his  friend. 
And  ruled  his  people  with  the  twofold  power 
Of  wisdom  that  can  dare  and  still  be  meek. 
Was  writing  his  last  word,  the  sacred  name 
Unutterable  of  that  Eternal  Will 
Which  was  and  is  and  evermore  shall  be. 
Yet  was  his  task  not  finished,  for  the  flock 
Needed  its  shepherd  and  the  life-taught  sage 
Leaves  no  successor;  but  to  chosen  men, 
The  rescuers  and  guides  of  Israel, 
A  death  was  given  called  the  Death  of  Grace, 
Which  freed  them  from  the  burden  of  the  flesh 
But  left  them  rulers  of  the  multitude 
And  loved  companions  of  the  lonely.     This 
Was  God's  last  gift  to  Moses,  this  the  hour 
When  soul  must  part  from  self  and  be  but  soul. 

God  spake  to  Gabriel,  the  messenger 
Of  mildest  death  that  draws  the  parting  life 
Gently,  as  when  a  little  rosy  child 
Lifts  up  its  lips  from  off  the  bowl  of  milk 
And  so  draws  forth  a  curl  that  dipped  its  gold 
In  the  soft  white — thus  Gabriel  draws  the  soul. 
"  Go  bring  the  soul  of  Moses  unto  me!'' 
And  the  awe-stricken  angel  answered,  "  Lord, 
How  shall  I  dare  to  take  his  life  who  lives 
Soul  of  his  kind,  not  to  be  likened  once 
In  all  the  generations  of  the  earth?" 

Then  God  called  Michael,  him  of  pensive  brow. 
Snow-vest  and  flaming  sword,  who  knows  and  acts: 

*^  Go  bring  the  spirit  of  Moses  unto  me!" 
But  Michael,  with  such  grief  as  angels  feel. 
Loving  the  mortals  whom  they  succor,  plead: 

"Almighty,  spare  me;  it  was  I  who  taught 
Thy  servant  Moses;  he  is  part  of  me 
As  I  of  thy  deep  secrets,  knowing  them." 

280 


THE    DEATH    OF    MOSES.  381 

Then  God  called  Zamacl,  the  terrible. 
The  angel  of  fierce  death,  of  agony 
That  comes  in  battle  and  in  pestilence 
Remorseless,  sudden  or  with  lingering  throes. 
And  Zamael,  his  raiment  and  broad  wings 
Blood-tinctured,  the  dark  lustre  of  his  eyes 
Shrouding  the  red,  fell  like  the  gathering  night 
Before  the  prophet.     But  that  radiance 
Won  from  the  heavenly  presence  in  the  mount 
Gleamed  on  the  prophet's  brow  and  dazzling  pierced 
Its  conscious  opposite:  the  angel  turned 
His  murky  gaze  aloof  and  inly  said: 
*'An  angel  this,  deathless  to  angel's  stroke.'' 

But  Moses  felt  the  subtly  nearing  dark: — 
"Who  art  thou?  and  what  wilt  thou?"  Zamael  then: 
"I  am  God's  reaper;  through  the  fields  of  life 
I  gather  ripened  and  unripened  souls 
Both  willing  and  unwilling.     And  I  come 
Now  to  reap  thee."     But  Moses  cried. 
Firm  as  a  seer  who  waits  the  trusted  sign: 
"  Eeap  thou  the  fruitless  plant  and  common  herb — 
Not  him  who  from  the  womb  was  sanctified 
To  teach  the  law  of  purity  and  love." 
And  Zamael  baffled  from  his  errand  fled. 

But  Moses,  pausing,  in  the  air  serene 
Heard  now  that  mystic  whisper,  far  yet  near. 
The  all-penetrating  Voice,  that  said  to  him, 

"Moses,  the  hour  is  come  and  thou  must  die." 

"Lord,  I  obey;  but  thou  remembercst 
How  thou,  ineffable,  didst  take  me  once 
Within  thy  orb  of  light  untouched  by  death." 
Then  the  voice  answered,  "Be  no  more  afraid: 
AVith  me  shall  be  thy  death  and  burial." 
So  Moses  waited,  ready  now  to  die. 

And  the  Lord  came,  invisible  as  a  thought, 

Three  angels  gleaming  on  his  secret  track. 

Prince  Michael,  Zamael,  Gabriel,  charged  to  guard 

The  soul-forsaken  body  as  it  fell 

And  bear  it  to  the  hidden  sepulchre 

Denied  forever  to  the  search  of  man. 

And  the  Voice  said  to  Moses:  "  Close  thine  eyes." 


282  THE   PE.VTH   OF   MOSES. 

He  closed  them,    "  Lay  thine  hand  upon  thine  heart, 

And  draw  thy  feet  together."     He  obeyed. 

And  the  Lord  said,  "0,  spirit!  child  of  mine!-   ' 

A  hundred  years  and  twenty  thou  hast  dwelt 

Within  this  tabernacle  wrought  of  clay. 

This  is  the  end:  come  forth  and  flee  to  heaven. '' 

But  the  grieved  soul  with  plaintive  pleading  cried, 
"I  love  this  body  with  a  clinging  love: 
The  courage  fails  me,  Lord,  to  part  from  it." 

s 

"0  child,  come  forth!  for  thou  shalt  dwell  with  me 
About  the  immortal  throne  where  seraphs  joy 
111  growing  vision  and  in  growing  love." 

Yet  hesitating,  fluttering,  like  the  bird 

With  young  wing  weak  and  dubious,  the  soul 

Stayed.     But  behold!  upon  the  death-dewed  lips 

A  kiss  descended,  pure,  unspeakable — 

The  bodiless  Love  without  embracing  Love 

That  lingered  in  the  body,  drew  it  forth 

With  heavenly  strength  and  carried  it  to  heaven. 

But  now  beneath  the  sky  the  watchers  all. 
Angels  that  keep  the  homes  of  Israel 
Or  on  high  purpose  wander  o'er  the  world 
Leading  the  Gentiles,  felt  a  dark  eclipse: 
The  greatest  ruler  among  men  was  gone. 
.     And  from  the  westward  sea  was  heard  a  wail, 
A  dirge  as  from  the  isles  of  Javanim, 
Crying,  "  Who  now  is  left  upon  the  earth 
Like  him  to  teach  the  right  and  smite  the  wrong?" 
And  from  the  East,  far  o'er  the  Syrian  waste. 
Came  slowlier,  sadlier,  the  answering  dirge: 
"  No  prophet  like  him  lives  or  shall  arise 
In  Israel  or  the  world  forevermore." 

But  Israel  waited,  looking  toward  the  mount. 
Till  with  the  deepening  eve  the  elders  came 
Saying,  "His  burial  is  hid  with  God. 
We  stood  far  off  and  saw  the  angels  lift 
His  corpse  aloft  until  they  seemed  a  star 
That  burned  itself  away  within  the  sky." 


THE    DEATH    OF   MOSES.  283 

The  people  answered  with  mute  orphaned  gaze 
Looking  for  what  had  vanished  evermore. 
Then  through  the  gloom  without  them  and  within 
The  spirit's  shaping  light,  mysterious  speech, 
Invisible  Will  wrought  clear  in  sculjitured  sound. 
The  thought-begotten  daughter  of  the  voice. 
Thrilled  on  thei^  listening  sense:  "  He  has  no  tomb. 
He  dwells  not  with  you  dead,  but  lives  as  Law." 


ARION. 

(Herod.  I.  24.) 


! 


AriO]!^,  whose  melodic  soul 
Taught  the  dithyramb  to  roll 

Like  forest  fires,  and  sing 

Olympian  suffering. 

Had  carried  his  diviner  lore 
From  Corinth  to  the  sister  shore 

Where  Greece  could  largelier  be, 

Branching  o'er  Italy. 

Then  weighted  with  his  glorious  name 
And  bags  of  gold,  aboard  he  came 
'Mid  harsh  seafaring  men 
To  Corinth  bound  again. 

The  sailors  eyed  the  bags  and  thought: 
'  The  gold  is  good,  the  man  is  naught — 
And  who  shall  track  the  wave 
That  opens  for  his  grave?'' 

With  brawny  arms  and  cruel  eyes 
They  j)ress  around  him  where  he  lies 
In  sleep  beside  his  lyre. 
Hearing  the  Muses  choir. 

He  waked  and  saw  this  wolf-faced  Death 
Breaking  the  dream  that  filled  his  breath 

With  inspiration  strong 

Of  yet  unchanted  song. 

'Take,  take  my  gold  and  let  me  live!'* 
He  prayed,  as  kings  do  wlien  they  give 
Their  all  with  royal  will. 
Holding  born  kingship  still. 
a84 


AEiozsr.  285 

To  rob  the  living  they  refuse. 
One  death  or  other  he  must  choose, 
.     Either  the  watery  pall 
Or  wounds  and  burial. 

*'  My  solemn  robe  then  let  me  don. 
Give  me  high  space  to  stand  upon. 
That  dying  I  may  pour 
A  song  unsung  before/' 

It  pleased  them  well  to  grant  this  prayer. 
To  hear  for  naught  how  it  might  fare 

With  men  who  paid  their  gold 

For  what  a  poet  sold. 

In  flowing  stole,  his  eyes  aglow 
With  inward  fire,  he  neared  the  prow 

And  took  his  god-like  stand. 

The  cithara  in  hand. 

The  wolfish  men  all  shrank  aloof. 
And  feared  this  singer  might  be  proof 

Against  their  murderous  power. 

After  his  lyric  hour. 

But  he,  in  liberty  of  song. 

Fearless  of  death  or  other  wrong. 
With  full  spondaic  toll 
Poured  forth  his  mighty  soul: 

Poured  forth  the  strain  his  dream  had  taught, 
A  nome  with  lofty  passion  fraught 

Such  as  makes  battles  won 

On  fields  of  Marathon. 

The  last  long  vowels  trembled  then 
As  awe  within  those  wolfish  men: 

They  said,  with  mutual  stare. 

Some  god  was  present  there. 

But  lo!  Arion  leaped  on  high 
Heady,  his  descant  done,  to  die; 

Not  asking,  "  Is  it  well?" 

Like  a  pierced  eagle  fell. 


"0  MAT  I  JOm  THE  CHOm  INYISIBLE." 


Longum  Ulud  tempus,  quum  mm  ero,  magis  me  movet,  quam  hoe  exiguum.- 
Cicero,  ad  Att.,  xii.  18. 

0  MAY  I  join  the  choir  invisible 

Of  those  immortal  dead  who  live  again 

In  minds  made  better  by  their  presence:  live 

In  pulses  stirred  to  generosity, 

In  deeds  of  daring  rectitude,  in  scorn 

For  miserable  aims  that  end  with  self, 

In  thoughts  sublime  that  pierce  the  night  like  stars. 

And  with  their  mild  persistence  urge  man's  search 

To  vaster  issues. 

So  to  live  is  heaven: 
To  make  undying  music  in  the  world. 
Breathing  as  beauteous  order  that  controls 
With  growing  sway  the  growing  life  of  man. 
So  we  inherit  that  sweet  purity 
For  which  we  struggled,  failed,  and  agonized 
With  widenmg  retrospect  that  bred  despair. 
Rebellious  flesh  that  would  not  be  subdued, 
A  vicious  parent  shaming  still  its  child 
Poor  anxious  penitence,  is  quick  dissolved; 
Its  discords,  quenched  by  meeting  harmonies. 
Die  in  the  large  and  charitable  air. 
And  all  our  rarer,  better,  truer  self, 
That  sobbed  religiously  in  yearning  song. 
That  watched  to  ease  the  burden  of  the  world. 
Laboriously  tracing  what  must  be. 
And  what  may  yet  be  better— saw  within 
A  worthier  image  for  the  sanctuary, 
And  shaped  it  forth  before  the  multitude 
Divinely  human,  raising  worship  so 
To  hiffher  reverence  more  mixed  with  love — 
That  better  self  shall  live  till  human  Time 
Shall  fold  its  eyelids,  and  the  human  sky 
Be  gathered  like  a  scroll  within  the  tomb 
Unread  forever. 

This  is  life  to  come. 
Which  martyred  men  have  made  more  glorious 
For  us  to  strive  to  follow.     May  I  reach 

386 


''0  MAY  I   JOIN"  THE   CHOIR  INVISIBLE."  287 

That  purest  heaven,  be  to  other  souls 
The  cup  of  strength  in  some  great  agony. 
Enkindle  generous  ardor,  feed  pure  love. 
Beget  the  smiles  that  have  no  cruelty — 
Be  the  sweet  presence  of  a  good  diffused. 
And  in  diffusion  ever  more  intense. 
So  shall  I  join  the  choir  invisible 
Whose  music  is  the  gladness  of  the  world. 


THE  SPANISH  GYPSY, 


10 


1 


This  Work  was  first  ■written  in  the  winter  of  1864-65; 
after  a  visit  to  Spain  in  1867  it  was  rewritten  and  amplified. 
The  reader  conversant  with  Spanish  poetry  will  see  that  in 
two  of  the  Lyrics  an  attempt  has  heen  made  to  imitate  the 
trochaic  measure  and  assonance  of  the  Spanish  Ballad. 

May,  1868. 


290 


THE  SPAl^ISH  GYPSY. 


BOOK  I. 

'Tisfhe  warm  South,  where  Europe  spreads  her  lands 
Like  fretted  leaflets,  breathing  on  the  deep: 
Broad-breasted  Spain,  leaning  with  equal  love 
On  the  Mid  Sea  that  moans  with  memories, 
And  on  the  untraveled  Ocean's  restless  tides. 
This  river,  shadowed  by  the  battlements 
And  gleaming  silvery  toward  the  northern  sky. 
Feeds  the  famed  stream  that  waters  Andalus 
And  loiters,  amorous  of  the  fragrant  air. 
By  Cordova  and  Seville  to  the  bay 
Fronting  Algarva  and  the  wandering  flood 
Of  Guadiana.     This  deep  mountain  gorge 
Slopes  widening  on  the  olive-plumed  plains 
Of  fair  Granada:  one  far-stretching  arm 
Points  to  Elvira,  one  to  eastward  heights 
Of  Alpuj arras  where  the  new-bathed  Day 
With  oriflamme  uplifted  o'er  the  peaks 
Saddens  the  breasts  of  north  ward -looking  snows 
That  loved  the  night,  and  soared  with  soaring  stars; 
Flashing  the  signals  of  his  ncaring  swiftness 
From  Almeria's  purple-shadowed  bay 
On  to  the  far-off  rocks  that  gaze  and  glow — 
On  to  Alhambra,  strong  and  ruddy  heart 
Of  glorious  Morisma,  gasping  now, 
A  maimed  giant  in  his  agony. 
This  town  that  dips  its  feet  within  the  stream. 
And  seems  to  sit  a  tower-crowned  Cybele, 
Spreading  her  ample  robe  adown  the  rocks. 
Is  rich  Bedniar:  'twas  Moorisli  long  ago. 
But  now  the  Cross  is  sparkling  on  tlie  Mosque, 
And  bells  make  Catholic  the  trembling  air. 
The  fortress  gleams  in  Spanish  sunshine  now 
('Tis  south  a  mile  before  t  lie  rays  are  Moorish) — 
Hereditary  jewel,  agraffe  bright 
On  all  the  many-titled  privilege 
Of  young  Duke  Silva.     No  Castilian  knight 

291 


292  THE    SPANISH    GYPSY. 

That  serves  Queen  Isabel  has  higher  charge; 

j^or  near  this  frontier  sits  the  Moorish  king. 

Not  Boabdil  the  waverer,  who  usurps 

A  throne  he  trembles  in,  and  fawning  licks 

The  feet  of  conquerors,  but  that  fierce  lion 

Grisly  El  Zagal,  who  has  made  his  lair 

In  Guadix'  fort,  and  rushing  thence  with  strength. 

Half  his  own  fierceness,  half  the  untainted  heart 

Of  mountain  bands  that  fight  for  holiday. 

Wastes  the  fair  lands  that  lie  by  Alcala, 

Wreathing  his  horse^s  neck  with  Christian  heads. 

To  keep  the  Christian  frontier — such  high  trust 

Is  young  Duke  Silva's;  and  the  time  is  great. 

(What  times  are  little?     To  the  sentinel 

That  hour  is  regal  when  he  mounts  on  guard.) 

The  fifteenth  century  since  the  Man  Divine 

Taught  and  was  hated  in  Capernaum 

Is  near  its  end — is  falling  as  a  husk 

Away  from  all  the  fruit  its  years  have  riped. 

The  Moslem  faith,  now  fiickering  like  a  torch 

In  a  night  struggle  on  this  shore  of  Spain, 

Glares  a  broad  column  of  advancing  flame, 

•Along  the  Danube  and  the  Illyrian  shore 

Far  into  Italy,  where  eager  monks. 

Who  watch  in  dreams  and  dream  the  while  thev  watch. 

See  Christ  grow  paler  in  the  baleful  lig,lit. 

Crying  again  the  cry  of  the  forsaken. 

But  faith,  the  stronger  for  extremity. 

Becomes  prophetic,  hears  the  far-off  tread 

Of  western  chivalry,  sees  downward  sweep 

The  archangel  Michael  with  the  gleaming  sword. 

And  listens  for  the  shriek  of  hurrying  fiends 

Chased  from  their  revels  in  God's  sanctuary. 

So  trusts  the  monk,  and  lifts  appealing  eyes 

To  the  high  dome,  the  Church's  firmament, 

Where  the  blue  light-pierced  curtain,  rolled  away. 

Reveals  the  throne  and  Ilim  who  sits  thereon. 

So  trust  the  men  whose  best  hope  for  the  world 

Is  ever  that  the  world  is  near  its  end: 

Impatient  of  the  stars  that  keep  their  course 

And  make  no  pathway  for  the  coming  Judge. 

But  other  futures  stir  the  world's  great  heart. 
The  West  now  enters  on  the  heritage 


THE   SPANISH   GYPSY.  293 

Won  from  the  tombs  of  mighty  ancestors. 

The  seeds,  the  gold,  the  gems,  the  silent  harps 

That  lay  deep  buried  with  the  memories 

Of  old  renown. 

Ko  more,  as  once  in  sunny  Avignon, 

The  poet-scholar  spreads  the  Homeric  page. 

And  gazes  sadly,  like  the  deaf  at  song; 

For  now  the  old  epic  voices  ring  again 

And  vibrate  with  the  beat  and  melody 

Stirred  by  the  warmth  of  old  Ionian  days. 

The  martyred  sage,  the  Attic  orator. 

Immortally  incarnate,  like  the  gods, 

In  spiritual  bodies,  winged  words 

Holding  a  universe  impalpable. 

Find  a  new  audience.     Forevermore, 

With  grander  resurrection  than  was  feigned 

Of  Attila's  fierce  Huns,  the  soul  of  Greece 

Conquers  the  bulk  of  Persia.     The  maimed  form 

Of  calmly-joyous  beauty,  marble-limbed. 

Yet  breathing  with  the  tliought  that  shaped  its  lipis, 

Looks  mild  reproach  from  out  its  oi^ened  grave 

At  creeds  of  terror;  and  the  vine-wreathed  god 

Fronts  the  pierced  Image  with  the  crown  of  thorns. 

The  soul  of  man  is  widening  toward  the  past: 

No  longer  hanging  at  the  breast  of  life 

Feeding  in  blindness  to  his  parentage — 

Quenching  all  wonder  with  Omnipotence, 

Praising  a  name  with  indolent  piety — 

He  spells  the  record  of  his  long  descent, 

More  largely  conscious  of  the  life  that  was. 

And  from  the  height  that  shows  wliere  morning  slionc 

On  far-off  summits  pale  and  gloomy  now. 

The  horizon  widens  round  him,  and  the  west 

Looks  vast  with  untracked  waves  whereon  his  gaze 

Follows  the  flight  of  the  swift-vanished  bird 

That  like  the  sunken  sun  is  mirrored  still 

Upon  the  yearning  soul  within  the  eye. 

And  so  in  Cui'dova  through  patient  nights 

Columbus  watches,  or  lie  sails  in  dreams 

Between  the  setting  stars  and  finds  new  day; 

Then  wakes  again  to  the  old  weary  days. 

Girds  on  the  cord  and  frock  of  pale  Saint  Francis, 

And  like  him  zealous  pleads  with  foolish  men. 

I  ask  but  for  a  million  maravedis: 

Give  me  three  caravels  to  find  a  world. 


294  THE    SPANISH    GYPSY. 

New  shores,  new  realms,  new  soldiers  for  the  Cross. 
Son  cosas  grcmdes !"     Thus  he  pleads  in  vain; 
Yet  faints  not  utterly,  but  pleads  anew. 
Thinking,  "  God  means  it,  and  has  chosen  me." 
For  this  man  is  the  pulse  of  all  mankind 
Feeding  an  embryo  future,  offspring  strange 
Of  the  fond  Present,  that  with  niother-j)rayers 
And  mother-fancies  looks  for  championship 
Of  all  her  loved  beliefs  and  old-world  ways 
From  that  young  Time  she  bears  within  her  womb. 
The  sacred  places  shall  be  purged  again, 
The  Turk  converted,  and  the  Holy  Church, 
Like  the  mild  Virgin  with  the  outspread  robe, 
Shall  fold  all  tongues  and  nations  lovingly. 

But  since  God  works  by  armies,  who  shall  be 

The  modern  Cyrus?     Is  it  France  most  Christian, 

Who  with  his  lilies  and  brocaded  knights, 

French  oaths,  French  vices,  and  the  newest  style 

Of  out-puffed  sleeve,  shall  pass  from  west  to  east, 

A  winnowing  fan  to  purify  the  seed 

For  fair  millennial  harvests  soon  to  come? 

Or  is  not  Spain  the  laud  of  chosen  warriors? — 

Crusaders  consecrated  from  the  womb. 

Carrying  the  sword-cross  stami)ed  upon  their  souls 

By  the  long  yearnings  of  a  nation's  life. 

Through  all  the  seven  patient  centuries 

Since  lirst  Pelayo  and  his  resolute  band 

Trusted  the  God  within  their  Gothic  hearts 

At  Covaduuga,  and  defied  Mahound; 

Beginning  so  the  Holy  War  of  Spain 

That  now  is  panting  with  the  eagerness 

Of  labor  near  its  end.     The  silver  cross 

Glitters  o'er  Malaga  and  streams  dread  light 

On  Moslem  galleys,  turning  all  their  stores 

From,  threats  to  gifts.     What  Spanish  knight  is  he 

Who,  living  now,  holds  it  not  shame  to  live 

Apart  from  that  hereditary  battle    • 

Which  needs  liis  sword?     Castilian  genilemen 

Choose  not  their  task — they  choose  to  do  it  well. 

The  time  is  great,  and  greater  no  man's  trust 
Than  his  who  keeps  the  fortress  for  his  king. 
Wearing  great  honors  as  some  delicate  robe 
Brocaded  o'er  with  names  'twere  sin  to  tarnish. 


THE   SPANISH    GYPSY.  295 

Born  de  la  Cerda,  Oalatravan  knight. 
Count  01  Segura,  fourth  duke  of  Bedmar, 
Offshoot  from  that  high  stock  of  old  Castile 
Whose  topmost  branch  is  proud  Medina  Cell — 
Such  titles  with  their  blazonry  are  his 
Who  keeps  this  fortress,  its  sworn  governor. 
Lord  of  the  valley,  master  of  the  town, 
Commanding  whom  he  will,  himself  commanded 
By  Christ  his  Lord  who  sees  him  from  the  Cross 
And  from  bright  heaven  where  the  Mother  pleads; — 
By  good  Saint  James  upon  the  milk-white  steed. 
Who  leaves  his  bliss  to  fight  for  chosen  Spain; — 
By  the  dead  gaze  of  all  his  ancestors; — 
And  by  the  mystery  of  his  Spanish  blood 
Charged  with  the  awe  and  glories  of  the  past. 

See  now  with  soldiers  in  his  front  and  rear 

He  winds  at  evening  through  the  narrow  streets 

That  toward  the  Castle  gate  climb  devious: 

His  charger,  of  fine  Andalusian  stock. 

An  Lidian  beauty,  black  but  delicate. 

Is  conscious  of  the  herald  trumpet  note. 

The  gathering  glances,  and  familiar  ways 

That  lead  fast  homeward :  she  forgets  fatigue. 

And  at  the  light  touch  of  the  master's  spur 

Thrills  with  the  zeal  to  bear  him  royally. 

Arches  her  neck  and  clambers  uj)  the  stones 

As  if  disdainful  of  the  difficult  steep. 

Night-black  the  charger,  black  the  rider's  plume. 

But  all  between  is  bright  Avith  morning  hues — 

Seems  ivory  and  gold  and  deep  blue  gems. 

And  starry  flashing  steel  and  pale  vermilion. 

All  set  in  jasper:  on  his  surcoat  white 

Grlitter  the  sword-belt  and  the  jeweled  hilt, 

Ked  on  the  back  and  breast  the  holy  cross. 

And  'twixt  the  helmet  and  the  soft-spun  white 

Thick  tawny  wavelets  like  the  lion's  mane 

Turn  backward  from  his  brow,  pale,  wide,  erect, 

Shadowing  blue  eyes  —  blue  as  the  rani-washed  sky 

That  braced  the  early  stem  of  Gothic  kings 

He  claims  for  ancestry.     A  goodly  knight, 

A  noble  caballero,  broad  of  chest 

And  long  of  limb.     So  much  the  August  sun. 

Now  in  the  west  but  shooting  half  its  beams 

Past  a  dark  rocky  profile  toward  the  plain. 


•^96  THE   SPANISH   GYPSY. 

At  windings  of  the  path  across  the  slope 

Makes  suddenly  luminous  for  all  who  see: 

For  women  smiling  from  the  terraced  roofs; 

For  boys  that  prone  on  trucks  with  head  up-propped 

Lazy  and  curious,  stare  irreverent; 

For  men  who  make  obeisance  with  degrees 

Of  good-will  shading  toward  servility, 

Where  good-will  ends  and  secret  fear  begins 

And  curses,  too,  low-muttered  through  the  teeth. 

Explanatory  to  the  God  of  Shem. 

Five,  grouped  within  a  whitened  tavern  court 
Of  Moorish  fashion,  where  the  trellised  vines 
Purpling  above  their  heads  make  odorous  shade, 
Note  through  the  open  door  the  passers-by, 
(letting  some  rills  of  novelty  to  speed 
The  lagging  stream  of  talk  and  help  the  wine. 
'Tis  Christian  to  drink  wine:  whoso  denies' 
His  flesh  at  bidding  save  of  Holy  Church, 
Let  him  beware  and  take  to  Christian  sins 
Lest  he  be  taxed  with  Moslem  sanctity. 

The  souls  are  five,  the  talkers  only  three. 

(No  time,  most  tainted  by  wrong  faith  and  rule. 

But  holds  some  listeners  and  dumb  animals.) 

Mine  Host  is  one:  he  with  the  well-arched  nose. 

Soft-eyed,  fat-handed,  loving  men  for  naught 

But  his  own  humor,  patting  old  and  young 

Upon  the  back,  and  mentioning  the  cost 

With  confidential  blandness,  as  a  tax     " 

That  he  collected  much  against  his  will 

From  Spaniards  who  were  all  his  bosom  friends: 

Warranted  Christian — else  how  keep  an  inn, 

AVhich  calling  asks  true  faith?  though  like  his  wine 

Of  cheaper  sort,  a  trifle  over-new. 

His  father  was  a  convert,  chose  the  chrism 

As  men  choose  physic,  kept  his  chimney  warm 

With  smokiest  wood  upon  a  Saturday, 

Counted  his  gains  and  grudges  on  a  chaplet. 

And  crossed  himself  asleep  for  fear  of  spies; 

Trusting  the  God  of  Israel  would  see 

'Twas  Christian  tyranny  that  made  him  base. 

Our  host  his  son  was  born  ten  years  too  soon. 

Had  heard  his  mother  call  him  Ephraim. 

Knew  holy  things  from  common,  thought  it  sin 


THE   SPANISH   GYPSY.  29 


w 


To  feast  on  days  when  Israel's  children  mourned, 

So  had  to  be  converted  with  his  sire, 

To  doff  the  awe  he  learned  as  Ephraim, 

And  suit  his  manners  to  a  Christian  name. 

But  infant  awe,  that  unborn  moving  thing, 

Dies  with  what  nourished  it,  can  never  rise 

From  the  dead  womb  and  walk  and  seek  new  pasture. 

Thus  baptism  seemed  to  him  a  merry  game 

Not  tried  before,  all  sacraments  a  mode 

Of  doing  homage  for  one's  property. 

And  all  religions  a  queer  human  whim 

Or  else  a  vice,  according  to  degrees: 

As,  'tis  a  whim  to  like  your  chestnuts  hot. 

Burn  your  own  mouth  and  draw  your  face  awry, 

A  vice  to  pelt  frogs  with  them  —  animals 

Content  to  take  life  coolly.     And  Lorenzo 

Would  have  all  lives  made  easy,  even  lives 

Of  spiders  and  inquisitors,  yet  still 

Wishing  so  well  to  flies  and  Moors  and  Jews 

He  rather  Avished  the  others  easy  death; 

For  loving  all  men  clearly  was  deferred 

Till  all  men  loved  each  other.     Such  Mine  Host, 

With  chiseled  smile  caressing  Seneca, 

The  solemn  mastiff  leaning  on  his  knee. 

His  right-hand  guest  is  solemn  as  the  dog. 
Square-faced  and  massive:  Blasco  is  his  name, 
A  prosperous  silversmith  from  Aragori; 
In  speech  not  silvery,  rather  tuned  as  notes 
From  a  deep  vessel  made  of  plenteous  iron. 
Or  some  great  bell  of  slow  but  certain  swing 
That,  if  you  only  wait,  will  tell  the  hour 
As  well  as  tiip^^ant  clocks  that  strike  in  haste 
And  set  off  chiming  a  superfluous  tune — 
Like  JuAX  there,  the  spare  man  with  the  lute. 
Who  makes  you  dizzy  with  his  rapid  tongue, 
Wliirring  athwart  your  mind  with  comment  swift 
On  speech  you  would  have  finished  by-and-by. 
Shooting  your  bird  for  you  while  you  were  loading. 
Cheapening  your  wisdom  as  a  pattern  known. 
Woven  by  any  shuttle  on  demand. 
Can  never  sit  quite  stilly  too:  sees  a  wasp 
And  kills  it  with  a  movement  like  a  flash; 
Whistles  low  notes  or  seems  to  thrum  his  lute 
As  a  mere  hyphen  'twixt  two  syllables 


298  THE   SPANISH    GYPSY. 

Of  any  steadier  man;  walks  up  and  down 
And  snuffs  the  orange  flowers  and  shoots  a  pea 
To  hit  a  streak  of  light  let  through  the  awning. 
Has  a  queer  face:  eyes  large  as  plums,  a  nose 
•       Small,  round,  uneven,  like  a  bit  of  wax 

Melted  and  cooled  by  chance.     Thin-fingered,  lithe. 

And  as  a  squirrel  noiseless,  startling  men  ' 

Only  by  quickness.     In  his  speech  and  look 

A  touch  of  graceful  wildness,  as  of  things 

Not  trained  or  tamed  for  uses  of  the  world; 

Most  like  the  Fauns  that  roamed  in  days  of  old 

About  the  listening  whispering  woods,  and  shared 

The  subtler  sense  of  sylvan  ears  and  eyes 

ITndulled  by  scheming  thought,  yet  joined  the  rout 

Of  men  and  women  on  the  festal  days. 

And  played  the  syrinx  too,  and  knew  love's  pains. 

Turning  their  anguish  into  melody. 

For  Juan  was  a  minstrel  still,  in  times 

When  minstrelsy  was  held  a  thing  outworn. 

Spirits  seemed  buried  and  their  epitaph 

Is  writ  in  Latin  by  severest  pens. 

Yet  still  they  flit  above  the  trodden  grave 

And  find  new  bodies,  animating  them 

In  quaint  and  ghostly  way  with  antique  souls. 

So  Juan  was  a  troubadour  revived. 

Freshening  life's  dusty  road  with  babbling  rills 

Of  wit  and  song,  living  'mid  harnessed  men 

With  limbs  ungalled  by  armor,  ready  so 

To  soothe  them  weary,  and  to  cheer  them  sad. 

Guest  at  the  board,  companion  in  the  camp, 

A  crystal  mirror  to  the  life  around. 

Flashing  the  comment  keen  of  simple  fact 

Defined  in  words;  lending  brief  lyric  voice 

To  grief  and  sadness;  hardly  taking  note 

Of  difference  betwixt  his  own  and  others'; 

But  rather  singing  as  a  listener 

To  the  deep  moans,  the  cries,  the  wild  strong  joys 

Of  universal  Nature,  old  yet  young. 

Such  Juan,  the  third  talker,  shimmering  bright 

As  butterfly  or  bird  with  quickest  life. 

The  silent  Roldan  has  his  brightness  too. 

But  only  in  his  spangles  and  rosettes. 

His  parti-colored  vest  and  crimson  hose 

Are  dulled  with  old  Yalencian  dust,  his  eyes 

With  straining  fifty  years  at  gilded  balls 


THE   SPANISH    GYPSY.  299 

To  catch  them  dancing,  or  with  brazen  looks 

At  men  and  women  as  he  made  his  jests 

Some  thousand  times  and  watched  to  count  the  j^ence 

His  wife  was  gathering.     His  olive  face 

Has  an  old  writing  in  it,  characters 

Stamped  deep  by  grins  that  had  no  merriment. 

The  soul's  rude  mark  proclaiming  all  its  blank; 

As  on  some  faces  that  have  long  grown  old 

In  lifting  tapers  up  to  forms  obscene 

On  ancient  walls  and  chuckling  with  false  zest 

To  please  my  lord,  who  gives  the  larger  fee 

For  that  hard  industry  in  apishness, 

Eoldan  would  gladly  never  laugh  again; 

Pensioned,  he  would  be  grave  as  any  ox. 

And  having  beans  and  crumbs  and  oil  secured 

Would  borrow  no  man's  jokes  forevermore. 

'Tis  harder  now  because  his  wife  is  gone. 

Who  had  quick  feet,  and  danced  to  ravishment 

Of  every  ring  jeweled  with  Spanish  eyes, 

But  died  and  left  this  boy,  lame  from  his  birth. 

And  sad  and  obstinate,  though  when  he  will 

He  sings  God-taught  such  marrow-thrilling  strains 

As  seem  the  very  voice  of  dying  Spring, 

A  flute-like  wail  that  mourns  the  blossoms  gone. 

And  sinks,  and  is  not,  like  their  fragrant  breath. 

With  fine  transition  on  the  trembling  air. 

He  sits  as  if  imprisoned  by  some  fear. 

Motionless,  with  wide  eyes  that  seem  not  made 

For  hungry  glancing  of  a  twelve-year'd  boy 

To  mark  the  living  thine  that  he  could  tease. 

But  for  the  gaze  of  some  primeval  sadness 

Dark  twin  with  light  in  the  creative  ray. 

This  little  Pablo  has  his  spangles  too, 

And  large  rosettes  to  hide  his  poor  left  foot 

Rounded  like  any  hoof  (his  mother  thought 

God  willed  it  so  to  punish  all  her  sins). 

I  said  the  souls  were  five — besides  the  dog. 

But  there  was  still  a  sixth,  with  wrinkled  face. 

Grave  and  disgusted  with  all  merriment 

Not  less  than  lioldan.     It  is  Anxibal, 

The  experienced  monkey  who  performs  the  tricks. 

Jumps  through  the  hoops,  and  carries  round  the  hat. 

Once  full  of  sallies  and  impromptu  feats. 

Now  cautious  not  to  light  on  auglit  that's  new. 


300  THE   SPANISH   GYPSY. 

Lest  he  be  whipped  to  do  it  o'er  again 
From  A  to  Z,  and  make  the  gentry  laugh: 
A  misanthropic  monkey,  gray  and  grim. 
Bearing  a  lot  that  has  no  remedy 
For  want  of  concert  in  the  monkey  tribe. 

We  see  the  company,  above  their  heads 
The  braided  matting,  golden  as  ripe  corn. 
Stretched  in  a  curving  strip  close  by  the  grapes. 
Elsewhere  rolled  back  to  greet  the  cooler  sky; 
A  fountain  near,  va.se-shapen  and  broad-lipped. 
Where  timorous  birds  alight  with  tiny  feet. 
And  hesitate  and  bend  wise  listening  ears. 
And  fly  away  again  with  undipped  beak. 
On  the  stone  floor  the  juggler's  heaped-up  goods. 
Carpet  and  hoops,  viol  and  tambourine. 
Where  Annibal  sits  perched  with  brows  severe, 
A  serious  ape  whom  none  take  seriously. 
Obliged  in  this  fool's  world  to  earn  his  nuts 
By  hard  buffoonery.     We  sec  them  all. 
And  hear  their  talk — the  talk  of  Spanish  men. 
With  Soutliern  intonation.  Towels  turned 
Caressingly  between  the  consonants. 
Persuasive,  willing,  with  such  intervals 
As  music  borrows  from  the  wooing  birds. 
That  plead  Avith  subtly  curving,  sweet  descent — 
And  yet  can  quarrel,  as  these  Spaniards  can. 

JiiAN  {near  the  doorway). 

You  hear  the  trumpet?     There's  old  Eamon's  blast. 

No  bray  but  his  can  shake  the  air  so  well. 

He  takes  his  trumpeting  as  solemnly 

As  angel  charged  to  wake  the  dead;  thinks  war 

Was  made  for  trumpeters,  and  their  great  art 

Made  solely  for  themselves  who  understand  it. 

His  features  all  have  shaped  themselves  to  blowing. 

And  when  his  trumpet's  bagged  or  left  at  home 

He  seems  a  chattel  in  a  broker's  booth, 

A  spoutless  watering-can,  a  promise  to  pay 

No  sum  particular.     0  fine  old  Eamon! 

The  blasts  get  louder  and  the  clattering  hoofs; 

They  crack  the  ear  as  well  as  heaven's  thunder 

For  owls  that  listen  blinking.     There's  the  banner. 


THE    SPANISH   GYPSY.  301 

Host  {joining  him:  the  others  follov)  to  the  door). 

The  Duke  has  finished  reconnoitering,  then? 
We  shall  hear  news.     Tliey  say  he  means  a  sally — 
Would  strike  El  ZagaFs  Moors  as  they  push  home 
Like  ants  with  booty  heavier  than  themselves; 
Then,  joined  by  other  nobles  with  their  bands. 
Lay  siege  to  Guadix.     Juan,  you're  a  bird 
That  nest  within  the  castle.     What  say  you? 

Juan. 

Naught,  I  say  naught.     'Tis  but  a  toilsome  game 

To  bet  upon  that  feather  Policy, 

And  guess  where  after  twice  a  hundred  puffs 

'Twill  catch  another  feather  crossing  it: 

Guess  how  the  Pope  will  blow  and  how  the  king; 

What  force  my  lady's  fan  has;  how  a  cough 

Seizing  the  Padre's  throat  may  raise  a  gust, 

And  how  the  queen  may  sigh  the  feather  down. 

Such  catching  at  imaginary  threads, 

Such  spinning  twisted  air,  is  not  for  me. 

If  I  should  want  a  game,  I'll  rather  bet 

On  racing  snails,  two  large,  slow,  lingering  snails — 

No  spurring,  equal  weights — a  chance  sublime. 

Nothing  to  guess  at,  pure  uncertainty. 

Here  comes  the  Duke.      They  give  but  feeble  shouts. 

And  some  look  sour. 

Host. 

That  spoils  a  fair  occasion. 
Civility  brings  no  conclusions  with  it. 
And  cheerful  Vivas  make  the  moments  glide 
Instead  of  grating  like  a  rusty  wheel.  i 

Juan. 

O  they  are  dullards,  kick  because  they're  stung. 
And  bruise  a  friend  to  show  they  hate  a  wasp. 

Host. 

Best  treat  your  wasp  with  delicate  regard; 

When  the  right  moment  comes  say,  "By  your  leave." 

Use  your  heel — so!  and  make  an  end  of  him. 

That's  if  we  talked  of  wasps;  but  our  young  Duke — 

Spain  holds  not  a  more  gallant  gentleman. 


302  THE    SPANISH    GYPSY. 

Live,  live,  Duke  Silva!    'T^s  a  rare  smile  lie  has. 
But  seldom  seen. 

JUAK. 

A  true  hidalgo's  smile. 
That  gives  much  favor,  but  beseeches  none. 
His  smile  is  sweetened  by  his  gravity: 
It  comes  like  dawn  upon  Sierra  snows. 
Seeming  more  generous  for  the  coldness  gone; 
Breaks  from  tlie  calm — a  sudden  opening  flower 
On  dark  deep  waters:  now  a  chalice  shut, 
A  mystic  shrine,  the  next  a  full-rayed  star. 
Thrilling,  pulse-quickening  as  a  living  word. 
I'll  make  a  song  of  that. 

Host. 

Prithee,  not  now. 
You'll  fall  to  staring  like  a  wooden  saint. 
And  wag  your  head  as  it  were  set  on  wires. 
Here's  fresh  sherbet.     Sit,  be  good  company. 
{To  Blasco)  You  are  a  stranger,  sir,  and  cannot  know 
How  our  Duke's  nature  suits  his  princely  frame. 

Blasco. 

Nay,  but  I  marked  his  spurs — chased  cunningly! 

A  duke  should  know  good  gold  and  silver  plate; 

Then  he  will  know  the  quality  of  mine. 

Tve  ware  for  tables  and  for  altars  too. 

Our  Lady  in  all  sizes,  crosses,  bells: 

He'll  need  such  weapons  full  as  much  as  swords 

If  he  would  capture  any  Moorish  town. 

For,  let  me  tell  you,  when  a  mosque  is  cleansed 


t 


Juan. 

The  demons  fly  so  thick  from  sound  of  bells 

And  smell  of  incense,  you  may  see  the  air 

Streaked  with  them  as  with  smoke.     Why,  they  are 

spirits : 
You  may  well  think  how  crowded  they  must  be 
To  make  a  sort  of  haze. 

Blasco. 

I  knew  not  that. 
Still,  they're  of  smoky  nature,  demons  are; 


THE    SPANISH    GYPSY.  3( 

And  since  you  say  so — well,  it  proves  the  more 

The  need  of  bells  and  censers.     Ay,  your  Duke 

Sat  well:  a  true  hidalgo.     I  can  judge — 

Of  harness  specially.     I  saw  the  camp, 

The  royal  camp  at  Velez  Malaga. 

'Twas  like  the  court  of  heaven — such  liveries! 

And  torches  carried  by  the  score  at  night 

Before  the  nobles.     Sirs,  I  made  a  dish 

To  set  an  emerald  in  would  fit  a  crown, 

For  Don  Alonzo,  lord  of  Aguilar. 

Your  Duke's  no  whit  behind  him  in  his  mien 

Or  harness  either.     But  you  seem  to  say 

The  people  love  him  not. 

Host. 

They've  naught  against  him. 
But  certain  winds  will  make  mcn^s  tem])er  bad. 
When  the  Solano  blows  hot  venonied .breath, 
It  acts  upon  men's  knives:  steel  takes  to  stabbing 
Which  else,  with  cooler  winds,  were  honest  steel. 
Cutting  but  garlick.     There's  a  wind  Just  now 
Blows  right  from  Seville 

Blasco. 

Ay,  you  mean  the  wind 

Yes,  yes,  a  wind  that's  rather  hot 

Host. 

With  faggots. 

Jtjah. 

A  wind  that  suits  not  with  our  townsmen's  blood. 
Abram,  'tis  said,  objected  to  be  scorched. 
And,  as  the  learned  Arabs  vouch,  he  gave 
The  antipathy  in  full  to  Ishmaiil. 
'Tis  true,  these  patriarchs  had  their  oddities. 

Blasco. 

Their  oddities?     I'm  of  their  mind,  1  know. 
Though,  as  to  Abraham  and  Ishmael, 
I'm  an  old  Christian,  and  owe  naught  to  them 
Or  any  Jew  among  them.     But  T  know 
We  made  a  stir  in  Sarugossa — we: 


304  THE   SPAlSriSH   GYPSY. 

The  men  of  Aragon  ring  hard — true  metal. 
Sirs,  I'm  no  friend  to  heresy,  but  then 
A  Christian's  money  is  not  safe.     As  how? 
A  lapsing  Jew  or  any  heretic 
May  owe  me  twenty  ounces:  suddenly 
He's  prisoned,  suffers  penalties — 'tis  well: 
If  men  will  not  believe,  'tis  good  to  make  them, 
But  let  the  penalties  fall  on  them  alone. 
The  Jew  is  stripped,  his  goods  are  confiscate; 
Now,  where,  I  pray  you,  go  my  twenty  ounces? 
God  knows,  and  perhaps  the  King  may,  but  not  I. 
Vnd  more,  my  son  may  lose  his  young  wife's  dower 
Because  'twas  promised  since  her  father's  soul 
Fell  to  wrong  thinking.     How  was  I  to  know? 
I  could  but  use  my  sense  and  cross  myself. 
Christian  is  Christian — I  give  in — but  still 
Taxing  is  taxing,  though  you  call  it  holy. 
We  Saragossans  liked  not  this  new  tax 
They  call  the — nonsense,  I'm  from  Aragon! 
I  speak  too  bluntly.     But.  for  Holy  Church, 
No  man  believes  more. 

Host. 

Nay,  sir,  never  fear. 
Good  Master  Roldan  here  is  no  delator. 

EoLDAJsr  {starting  from  a  reverie). 

You  speak  to  me,  sirs?     I  perform  to-night — 
The  Pla9a  Santiago.     Twenty  tricks. 
All  different.     I  dance,  too.     And  the  boy 
Sings  like  a  bird.     I  crave  your  patronage. 

Blasco. 

Faith,  you  shall  have  it,  sir.     In  traveling 
I  take  a  little  freedom,  and  am  gay. 
You  marked  not  what  I  said  just  now  ? 

ROLDAK. 

I?  no. 

I  pray  your  pardon.     I've  a  twinging  knee, 
That  makes  it  hard  to  listen.     Yon  were  saying? 

Blasco. 

Nay,  it  was  naught.     {Aside  to  Host)  Is  it  his  deep- 
ness? 


THE    Sl'AXlSH    GYPSY.  305 

Host. 

No. 
He's  deep  in  nothing  but  his  poverty. 

Blasco. 
But  'twas  his  poverty- that  made  me  think 

Host. 

His  piety  might  wish  to  keep  the  feasts 
As  well  as  fasts.     No  fear;  he  hears  not. 

Blasco. 

Good. 
I  speak  my  mind  about  the  penalties. 
But  look  you,  Tm  against  assassination. 
You  know  my  meaning — Master  Arbues, 
The  grand  Inquisitor  in  Aragon. 
I  knew  naught — paid  no  copper  toward  the  deed. 
But  I  was  there,  at  prayers,  within  the  church. 
How  could  I  help  it?     Why,  the  saints  were  there, 
And  looked  straight  on  above  the  altars.     I 

Juan. 
Looked  carefully  another  way. 

Blasco. 

Why,  at  my  beads. 
'Twas  after  midnight,  and  the  canons  all 
Were  chanting  matins.     I  was  not  in  church 
To  gape  and  stare.     I  saw  the  martyr  kneel; 
I  never  liked  the  look  of  him  alive — 
He  was  no  martyr  then.     I  thought  he  made 
An  ugly  shadow  as  he  crept  athwart 
The  bands  of  light,  then  passed  within  the  gloom 
By  the  broad  pillar.     'Twas  in  our  great  Seo, 
At  Saragossa.     The  pillars  tower  so  large 
You  cross  yourself  to  see  them,  lest  white  Death 
Should  hide  behind  their  dark.     And  so  it  was. 
I  looked  away  again  and  told  my  beads 
Unthinkingly;  but  still  a  man  has  cars; 
And  right  across  the  chanting  came  a  soi;iid 
As  if  a  tree  had  crashed  above  the  roar 
20 


306  THE   SPANISH    GYPSY. 

Of  some  great  torrent.     So  it  seemed  to  m8> 

For  when  you  listen  long  and  shut  your  eyes 

Small  sounds  get  thunderous.     He  had  a  shell 

Like  any  lobster;  a  good  iron  suit  m 

From  top  to  toe  beneath  the  innocent  serge.  1 

That  made  the  tell-tale  sound.     But  then  came  shrieks.       \ 

The  chanting  stopped  and  turned  to  rushing  feet, 

And  in  the  midst  lay  Master  Arbues, 

Felled  like  an  ox.     'Twas  wicked  butchery. 

Some  honest  men  had  hoped  it  would  have  scared 

The  Inquisition  out  of  Aragon. 

'Twas  money  thrown  away — I  would  say,  crime — 

Clean  thrown  away. 

Host. 

That  was  a  pity  now 
Next  to  a  missing  thrust,  what  irks  me  most 
Is  a  neat  well-aimed  stroke  that  kills  your  man. 
Yet  ends  in  mischief — as  in  Aragon. 
It  was  a  lesson  to  our  people  here. 
Else  there's  a  monk  within  our  city  walls, 
A  holy,  high-born,  stern  Dominican, 
They  might  have  made  the  great  mistake  to  kill. 


Blasco. 


What!  is  he?- 


HOST. 

Yes;  a  Master  Arbues 
Of  finer  quality.     The  Prior  here 
And  uncle  to  our  Duke. 

Blasco. 

He  will  want  plate; 
A  holy  pillar  or  a  crucifix. 
But,  did  you  say,  he  was  like  Arbues? 

Juan. 

As  a  black  eagle  with  gold  beak  and  claws 

Is  like  a  raven.     Even  in  his  cowl. 

Covered  from  head  to  foot,  the  Prior  is  known 

From  all  the  black  herd  round.     When  he  uncovers 

And  stands  white-frocked,  with  ivory  face,  his  eyes 

Black-gleaming,  black  his  coronal  of  hair 


«>  THE    SPANISH    GYPSY.  307 

Like  shredded  jasper,  he  seems  less  a  man 

With  struggling  aims,  than  pure  incarnate  Will, 

Fit  to  subdue  rebellious  nations,  nay, 

That  human  flesh  he  breathes  in,  charged  with  passion 

Which  quivers  in  his  nostril  and  his  lip. 

But  disciplined  by  long  in-dwelling  will 

To  silent  labor  in  the  yoke  of  law. 

A  truce  to  thy  comparisons,  Lorenzo! 

Thine  is  no  subtle  nose  for  difference; 

'Tis  dulled  by  feigning  and  civility. 

Host. 

Pooh,  thou'rt  a  poet,  crazed  with  finding  words 

May  stick  to  things  and  seem  like  qualities. 

No  pebble  is  a  pebble  in  tliy  hands: 

'Tis  a  moon  out  of  work,  a  barren  egg, 

Or  twenty  things  that  no  man  sees  but  thee. 

Our  Father  Isidor's — a  living  saint, 

And  that  is  heresy,  some  townsmen  think: 

Saints  should  be  dead,  according  to  the  Church. 

My  mind  is  this:  the  Father  is  so  holy 

'Twere  sin  to  wish  his  soul  detained  from  bliss. 

Easy  translation  to  the  realms  above. 

The  shortest  journey  to  the  seventh  heaven. 

Is  what  I'd  never  grudge  him. 

Blasco. 

Piously  said. 
Look  you,  I'm  dutiful,  obey  the  Church 
When'  there's  no  help  for  it :  I  mean  to  say. 
When  Pope  and  Bishop  and  all  customers 
Order  alike.     But  there  be  bishops  now, 
And  were  aforetime,  who  have  held  it  wrong. 
This  hurry  to  convert  the  Jews.     As  how? 
Your  Jew  pays  tribute  to  the  bishop,  say. 
That's  good,  and  must  please  God,  to  sec  the  Church 
Maintained  in  ways  that  ease  the  Christian's  purse. 
Convert  the  Jew,  and  where's  the  tribute,  pray? 
He  lapses,  too:  'tis  slippery  work,  conversion: 
And  then  the  holy  taxing  carries  off 
His  money  at  one  sweep.     No  tribute  more! 
He's  penitent  or  burned,  and  there's  an  end. 
Now  guess  which  pleases  God 


308  the  spanish  gypsy. 

Juan. 

Whether  he  likes 
A  well-burned  Jew  or  well-fed  bishop  best. 

[While  Juan  put  this  problem  theologic 
Entered,  with  resonant  step,  another  guest — 
A  soldier:  all  his  keenness  in  his  sword, 
His  eloquence  in  scars  upon  his  cheek, 
His  virtue  in  much  slaying  of  the  Moor: 
With  brow  well-creased  in  horizontal  folds 
To  save  the  space,  as  having  naught  to  do: 
Lips  prone  to  whistle  whisperingly — no  tune. 
But  trotting  rhythm:  meditative  eyes. 
Most  often  fixed  upon  his  legs  and  spurs: 
Styled  Captain  Lopez.] 

Lopez. 

At  vour  service,  sirs. 

Juan. 

Ha,  Lopez?    Why,  thou  hast  a  face  full-charged 
i    As  any  herald's.     What  news  of  the  wars? 

Lopez. 
Such  news  as  is  most  bitter  on  my  tongue. 

Juan. 
Then  spit  it  forth. 

Host. 

Sit,  Captain:  here's  a  cup. 
Fresh-filled.     What  news? 

Lopez. 

'Tis  bad.     We  make  no  sally: 
We  sit  still  here  and  wait  whate'er  the  Moor 
Shall  please  to  do. 

Host. 

Some  townsmen  will  be  glad. 


THE   SPANISH   GYPSY.  309 


Lopez. 


Glad,  will  they  be?     But  Fm  not  glad,  not  I, 
N"or  any  Spanish  soldier  of  clean  blood. 
But  the  Duke's  wisdom  is  to  wait  a  siege 
Instead  of  laying  one.     Therefore — meantime — 
He  will  be  married  straightway. 

Host. 

Ha,  ha,  ha! 

Thy  speech  is  like  an  hourglass;  turn  it  down 
The  other  way,  ^twill  stand  as  well,  and  say 
The  Duke  will  wed,  therefore  he  waits  a  siege. 
But  what  says  Don  Diego  and  the  Prior.'* 
The  holy  uncle  and  the  fiery  Don? 

Lopez. 

0  there  be  sayings  running  all  abroad 

As  thick  as  nuts  overturned.     No  man  need  lack. 
Some  say,  'twas  letters  changed  the  Duke's  intent: 
From  Malaga,  says  Bias.     From  Rome,  says  Quintin. 
From  spies  at  Guadix,  says  Sel)astian. 
Some  say  'tis  all  a  pretext — say,  the  Duke 
Is  but  a  lapdog  hanging  on  a  skirt, 
Turning  his  eyeballs  upward  like  a  monk: 
'Twas  Don  Diego  said  that — so  says  Bias; 
Last  week,  he  said 

JUAJT. 

0  do  without  the  "said!" 
Open  thy  mouth  and  pause  in  lieu  of  it. 

1  had  as  lief  be  pelted  with  a  pea 
Irregularly  in  the  self-same  spot 
As  hear  such  iteration  without  rule. 
Such  torture  of  uncertain  certainty. 

Lopez. 

Santiago!  Juan,  thou  art  hard  to  please. 
I  speak  not  for  my  own  delighting,  I. 
I  can  be  silent,  I. 

Blasdo. 

Nay,  sir,  speak  on! 


'MO  THE    SPAXISH    GYPSY. 


I  like  your  matter  well.     I  deal  in  plate. 
This  wedding  touches  me.     Who  is  the  bride? 


Lopez. 

One  that  some  say  the  Duke  does  ill  to  wed. 

One  that  his  mother  reared — God  rest  her  soul! — 

Duchess  Diana — she  who  died  last  year. 

A  bird  picked  up  away  from  any  nest. 

Her  name — the  Duchess  gave  it — is  Fed  alma. 

No  harm  in  that.     But  the  Duke  stoops,  they  say, 

In  wedding  her.     And  that's  the  simple  truth. 

Juan. 

Thy  simple  truth  is  but  a  false  opinion: 
The  simple  truth  of  asses  who  believe 
Their  thistle  is  the  very  best  of  food. 
Fie,  Lopez,  thou  a  Spaniard  with  a  sword 
Dreamest  a  Spanish  noble  ever  stoops 
By  doing  honor  to  the  maid  he  loves! 
He  stoops  alone  when  he  dishonors  her. 

Lopez. 
Nay,  I  said  naught  against  her. 

JUAN". 

Better  not. 
Else  I  would  challenge  thee  to  fight  with  wits, 
And  spear  thee  through  and  through  ere  thou  couldst 

draw 
The  bluntest  word.     Yes,  yes,  consult  thy  spurs: 
Spurs  are  a  sign  of  knighthood,  and  should  tell  thee 
That  knightly  love  is  blent  with  reverence 
As  heavenly  air  is  blent  with  heavenly  blue. 
Don  Silva's  heart  beats  to  a  loyal  tune: 
He  wills  no  highest-born  Castilian  dame. 
Betrothed  to  highest  noble,  should  be  held 
More  sacred  than  Fedalma.     He  enshrines 
Her  vii-gin  image  for  the  general  awe 
And  for  his  own — will  guard  her  from  the  world. 
Nay,  his  profaner  self,  lest  he  should  lose 
The  place  of  his  religion.     He  does  well. 
Naught  can  come  closer  to  the  poet's  strain. 


THE    SPANISH    GYPSY.  311 


Host. 


Or  farther  from  his  practice,  Juan,  eh? 
If  thou^rt  a  sample? 

JUAJS". 

Wrong  there,  my  Lorenzo! 
Touching  Fedalma  the  poor  poet  plays 
A  finer  part  even  than  the  noble  Duke. 

Lopez. 

By  making  ditties,  singing  with  round  mouth 
Likest  a  crowing  cock?    Thou  meanest  that? 

JuAisr. 

Lopez,  take  physic,  thou  art  getting  ill. 
Growing  descriptive;  'tis  unnatural. 
I  mean,  Don  Silva's  love  expects  reward. 
Kneels  with  a  heaven  to  come;  but  the  poor  poet 
Worships  without  reward,  nor  hopes  to  find 
A  heaven  save  in  his  worship.     He  adores 
The  sweetest  woman  for  her  sweetness'  sake, 
Joys  in  the  love  that  was  not  born  for  him, 
Because  'tis  lovingness,  as  beggars  joy, 
Warming  tlieir  naked  limbs  on  wayside  walls. 
To  hear  a  tale  of  princes  and  their  glory. 
There's  a  poor  poet  (poor,  I  mean,  in  coin) 
Worships  Fedalma  with  so  true  a  love 
That  if  her  silken  robe  were  changed  for  rags. 
And  she  were  driven  out  to  stony  wilds 
Barefoot,  a  scorned  wanderer,  he  would  kiss 
Her  ragged  garment's  edge,  and  only  ask 
For  leave  to  be  her  slave.     Digest  that,  friend. 
Or  let  it  lie  upon  thee  as  a  weight 
To  check  light  thinking  of  Fedalma. 

Lopez. 

I? 

I  think  no  harm  of  her;  I  thank  the  saints 
I  wear  a  sword  and  peddle  not  in  thinking. 
'Tia  Father  Marcos  says  she'll  not  confess 
And  loves  not  holy  water;  says  her  blood 
Is  infidel;  says  the  Duke's  wedding  her 
Is  union  of  liiyht  with  darkness. 


313  the  spanish  gypsy. 

Juan. 


Tush! 


[Now  Juan — who  by  snatches  touched  his  lute 

Witli  soft  arpeggio,  like  a  whispered  dream 

Of  sleeping  music,  while  he  spoke  of  love — 

In  jesting  anger  at  the  soldier's  talk 

Thrummed  loud  and  fast,  then  faster  and  more  loud. 

Till,  as  he  answered  "  Tush!"  he  struck  a  chord 

Sudden  as  whip-crack  close  by  Lopez'  ear. 

Mine  host  and  Blasco  smiled,  the  mastiff  barked, 

Eoldan  looked  up  and  Annibal  looked  down. 

Cautiously  neutral  in  so  new  a  case: 

The  boy  raised  longing,  listening  eyes  that  seemed 

An  exiled  spirit's  waiting  in  strained  hope 

Of  voices  coming  from  the  distant  land. 

But  Lopez  bore  the  assault  like  any  rock: 

That  was  not  what  lie  drew  his  sword  at — he! 

He  spoke  with  neck  erect.] 

Lopez. 

If  that's  a  hint 
The  company  should  ask  thee  for  a  song, 
Sing,  then! 

Host. 

Ay,  Juan,  sing,  and  jar  no  more. 
Something  brand  new.    Thou'rt  wont  to  make  my  ear 
A  test  of  novelties.     Hast  thou  aught  fresh? 

Juan. 

As  fresh  as  rain-drops.     Here's  a  Cancion 
Springs  like  a  tiny  mushroom  delicate 
Out  of  the  priest's  foul  scandal  of  Fedalma. 

[He  preluded  with  querying  intervals. 
Rising,  then  falling  just  a  semitone. 
In  minor  cadence — sound  with  poised  wing 
Hovering  and  quivering  toward  the  needed  fall. 
Then  in  a  voice  that  shook  the  willing  air 
With  masculine  vibration  sang  this  song: 


THE   8PAN1SH   GYPSY.  313 

Should  I  long  that  dark  ivere  faw  ? 

Say,  0  So7ig  ! 

Lacks  my  love  aught,  that  I  should  long? 


Dark  the  night,  with  breath  all  flowers, 

And  tender  broken  voice  that  fills 

With  ravishment  the  listening  hours: 

Whispei'ings,  wooings. 

Liquid  ripples  and  soft  ring-dove  cooings 

hi  low-toned  rhythm  that  love's  aching  stills. 

Dark  the  night. 

Yet  is  she  bright, 

For  in  her  dark  she  brings  the  mystic  star, 

Trembling  yet  strong,  as  is  the  voice  of  love, 

From  some  unknoum  afar. 

0  radiant  dark  !  0  darkly-fostered  ray  ! 

Thou  hast  a  joy  too  deep  for  shalloio  Day. 

While  Juan  sang,  all  round  the  tavern  court 

Gathered  a  constellation  of  black  eyes. 

Fat  Lola  leaned  upon  the  balcony 

With  arms  tliat  might  have  pillowed  Hercules 

(Who  built,  'tis  known,  the  mightiest  Spanish  towns); 

Thin  Alda's  face,  sad  as  a  wasted  passion. 

Leaned  o'er  the  nodding  baby's;  'twixt  the  rails 

The  little  Pepe  showed  his  two  black  beads. 

His  flat-ringed  hair  and  small  Semitic  nose. 

Complete  and  tiny  as  a  new-born  minnow;   . 

Patting  his  head  and  holding  in  her  arms 

The  baby  senior,  stood  Lorenzo's  wife 

All  negligent,  her  kerchief  discomposed 

By.little  clutches,  woman's  coquetry 

Quite  turned  to  mother's  cares  and  sweet  content. 

These  on  the  balcony,  while  at  the  door 

Gazed  the  lank  boys  and  lazy-shouldered  men. 

*Tis  likely  too  the  rats  and  insects  peeped, 

Being  Southern  Spanish  ready  for  a  lounge. 

Tlie  singer  smiled,  as  doubtless  Orpheus  smiled, 

To  see  the  nnimals  both  great  and  small. 

The  mountainous  elephant  and  scampering  mouse. 

Held  by  the  ears  in  decent  audience; 

Then,  when  mine  host  desired  the  strain  once  more, 

He  fell  to  preluding  with  rhythmic  change 

Of  notes  recurrent,  soft  as  pattering  drops 

That  fall  from  off  the  eaves  in  fairy  dance 


5tl4  THE   SPANISH    GYPSY. 

When  clouds  are  breaking;  till  at  measured  pause 
He  struck  with  strength;,  in  rare  responsive  chords.] 

Host. 

Come,  then,  a  gayer  ballad,  if  thou  wilt: 

I  quarrel  not  with  change.     What  say  you,  Captain? 

Lopez. 

All's  one  to  me.     I  note  no  change  of  tune. 
Not  I,  save  in  the  ring  of  horses'  hoofs, 
Or  in  the  drums  and  trumpets  when  they  call 
To  action  or  retreat.     I  ne'er  could  see 
The  good  of  singing. 

Blasco. 

Why,  it  passes  time — 
Saves  you  from  getting  over-wise:  that's  good. 
For,  look  you,  fools  are  merry  here  below. 
Yet  they  will  go  to  heaven  all  the  same, 
Having  the  sacraments;  and,  look  you,  heaven 
Is  a  long  holiday,  and  solid  men. 
Used  to  much  business,  might  be  ill  at  ease 
Not  liking  play.     And  so,  in  traveling, 
I  shape  myself  betimes  to  idleness 
And  take  fools'  pleasures 

Host. 

Hark,  the  song  begins! 

JuAK  (sings). 

Maiden,  crowned  ivitli  glossy  hlachness. 

Lithe  as  pantlier  forest-roaming , 
Long-armed  naiad,  ivhen  she  dances, 

On  a  stream  of  ether  floating — 

Bright,  0  bright  Fedahna! 

Form  all  curves  lihe  softness  drifted, 
Wave-kissed  marlle  roundly  dimpling, 

Far-off  music  slo?vly  winged. 
Gently  rising,  gently  sinking — 

Bright,  0  bright  Fedalmal 

Pure  as  rain-tear  on  a  rose-leaf. 
Cloud  high-born  in  noonday  spotless. 


THE   SPANISH    GYPSY.  315 

8udden  perfect  as  tlie  dew-bead, 
Oei7i  of  earth  and  sky  begotten — 

Bright,  0  bright  Fedalma! 

Beauty  has  no  mortal  father, 

Holy  light  her  form  engendered 
Out  of  tremor,  yearning,  gladness. 

Presage  siveet  and  joy  remembered — 
Child  of  Light,  Fedalma! 

Blasco. 

Faith,  a  good  song,  sung  to  a  stirring  tune. 
I  like  the  words  returning  in  a  round; 
It  gives  a  sort  of  sense.     Another  such! 

EoLDA]sr  (risiiig). 

Sirs,  you  will  hear  my  boy.     ^Tis  very  hard 
When  gentles  sing  for  naught  to  all  the  town. 
How  can  a  poor  man  live?     And  now  'tis  time 
I  go  to  the  Plaga — who  will  give  me  pence 
When  he  can  hear  hidalgos  and  give  naught? 

Juan. 

True,  friend.     Be  pacified.     I'll  sing  no  more. 
Go  thou,  and  we  will  follow.     Never  fear. 
My  voice  is  common  as  the  ivy-leaves, 
Plucked  in  all  seasons — bears  no  price;  thy  boy's 
Is  like  the  almond  blossoms.     Ah,  he's  lame! 

♦Host. 

Load  him  not  heavily.  Here,  Pedro!  help. 
Go  with  them  to  the  Pla^a,  take  the  hoops. 
The  sights  will  pay  thee. 

Blasco. 

I'll  be  there  anon. 
And  set  the  fashion  with  a  good  white  coin. 
But  let  us  see  as  well  as  hear. 

Host. 

Ay,  prithee. 
Some  tricks,  a  dance. 


316  the  spanish  gypsy. 

Blasco. 

Yes,  'tis  more  rational. 

EoLDAN  {turning  round  with  the  bundle  and  monkey  on        | 

his  shoulders).  i 

You  shall  see  all,  sirs.     There's  no  man  in  Spain 
Knows  his  art  better.     I've  a  twinging  knee 
Oft  hinders  dancing,  and  the  boy  is  lame. 
But  no  man's  monkey  has  more  tricks  than  mine. 

[At  this  high  praise  the  gloomy  Annibal, 

Mournful  professor  of  high  drollery, 

Seemed  to  look  gloomier,  and  the  little  troop 

Went  slowly  out,  escorted  from  the  door 

By  all  the  idlers.     From  the  balcony 

Slowly  subsided  the  black  radiance 

Of  agate  eyes,  aud  broke  in  chattering  sounds, 

Coaxings  and  trampings,  and  the  small  hoarse  squeak 

Of  Pepe's  reed.     And  our  group  talked  again.] 

Host. 

I'll  get  this  juggler,  if  he  quits  him  well. 

An  audience  here  as  choice  as  can  be  lured. 

For  me,  when  a  poor  devil  does  his  best, 

'Tis  my  delight  to  soothe  his  soul  with  praise. 

"What  Though  the  best  be  bad?  remains  the  good 

Of  throwing  food  to  a  lean  hungry  dog. 

I'd  give  up  the  best  jugglery  in  life 

To  see  a  miserable  juggler  pleased. 

But  that's  my  humor.     Crowds  are  malcontent 

And  cruel  as  the  Holy -shall  we  go? 

All  of  us  now  together? 

Lopez. 

Well,  not  I. 
I  may  be  there  anon,  but  first  I  go 
To  the  lower  prison.     There  is  strict  command 
That  all  our  gypsy  prisoners  shall  to-night 
Be  lodged  within  the  fort.     They've  forged  enough 
Of  balls  and  bullets — used  up  all  the  metal. 
At  morn  to-morrow  they  must  carry  stones 
ITp  the  south  tower.     'Tis  a  fine  stalwart  band. 
Fit  for  the  hardest  tasks.     Some  say,  the  queen 


THE   SPANISH   GYPSY.  317 

Would  have  the  gypsies  banished  with  the  Jews. 
Some  say,  'twere  better  harness  them  for  work. 
They'd  feed  on  any  filth  and  save  the  Spaniard. 
Some  say — but  I  must  go.     'Twill  soon  be  time 
To  head  the  escort.     We  shall  meet  again. 

Blasco. 

Go,  sir,  with  God  {exit  Lopez).     A  very  proper  man, 

And  soldierly.     But,  for  this  banishment 

Some  men  are  hot  on,  it  ill  pleases  me. 

The  Jews,  now  (sirs,  if  any  Christian  here 

Had  Jews  for  ancestors,  I  blame  him  not; 

We  cannot  all  be  Goths  of  Aragon) — 

Jews  are  not  fit  for  heaven,  but  on  earth 

They  are  most  useful.     'Tis  the  same  with  mules. 

Horses,  or  oxen,  or  with  any  pig 

Except  St.  Anthony's.     They  are  useful  here 

(The  Jews,  I  mean)  though  they  may  go  to  hell. 

And,  look  you,  useful  sins — why  Providence 

Sends  Jews  to  do  'em,  saving  Christian  souls. 

The  very  Gypsies,  curbed  and  harnessed  well. 

Would  make  draft  cattle,  feed  on  vermin  too. 

Cost  less  than  grazing  brutes,  and  turn  bad  food 

To  handsome  carcasses;  sweat  at  the  forge 

For  little  wages,  and  well  drilled  and  flogged 

Might  work  like  slaves,  some  Spaniards  looking  on. 

I  deal  in  plate,  and  am  no  priest  to  say 

What  God  may  mean,  save  when  he  means  plain  sense; 

But  when  he  sent  the  Gypsies  wandering 

In  punishment  because  they  sheltered  not 

Our  Lady  and  St.  Joseph  (and  no  doubt 

Stole  the  small  ass  they  fled  with  into  Egypt), 

Why  send  them  here?     'Tis  plain  he  saw  the  use 

They'd  be  to  Spaniards.     Shall  we  banish  them. 

And  tell  God  we  know  better?     'Tis  a  sin. 

They  talk  of  vermin;  but,  sirs;  vermin  large 

Were  made  to  eat  the  small,  or  else  to  cat 

The  noxious  rubbish,  and  picked  Gypsy  men 

Might  serve  in  war  to  climb,  be  killed,  and  fall 

To  make  an  easy  ladder.     Once  1  saw 

A  Gypsy  sorcerer,  at  a  spring  and  grasp 

Kill  one  who  came  to  seize  him:  talk  of  strength! 

Nay,  swiftness  too,  for  while  we  crossed  ourselves 

He  vanished  like — say,  like 


318  the  spanish  gypsy, 

Juan. 

A  swift  black  snake. 
Or  like  a  living  arrow  fledged  with  will. 

Blasoo- 
Why,  did  you  see  him,  pray? 

JUAK. 

Not  then,  but  now. 
As  painters  see  the  many  in  the  one. 
We  have  a  Gypsy  in  Bedmar  whose  frame 
Nature  compacted  with  such  fine  selection, 
'Twould  yield  a  dozen  types:  all  Spanish  knights. 
From  him  who  slew  Rolando  at  the  pass 
Up  to  the  mighty  Cid;  all  deities, 
Thronging  Olympus  in  fine  attitudes; 
Or  all  lielFs  heroes  whom  the  poet  saw 
Tremble  like  lions,  writhe  like  demigods. 

Host. 

Pause  not  yet,  Juan — more  hyperbole! 
Shoot  upward  still  and  flare  in  meteors 
Before  thou  sink  to  earth  in  dull  brown  fact. 

Blasco. 

Nay,  give  me  fact,  high  shooting  suits  not  me. 
I  never  stare  to  look  for  soaring  larks. 
What  is  this  Gypsy? 

Host. 

Chieftain  of  a  band. 
The  Moor's  allies,  whom  full  a  month  ago 
Our  Duke  surprised  and  brought  us  captives  home. 
He  needed  smiths,  and  doubtless  the  brave  Moor 
Has  missed  some  useful  scouts  and  archers  too. 
Juan's  fantastic  pleasure  is  to  watch 
These  Gypsies  forging,  and  to  hold  discourse 
With  this  great  chief,  whom  he  transforms  at  will 
To  sage  or  warrior,  and  like  the  sun 
Plays  daily  at  fallacious  alchemy. 
Turns  sand  to  gold  and  dewy  spider-webs 
To  myriad  rainbows.     Still  "the  sand  is  sand. 


TH£   SPANISH   GYPSY.  319 

And  still  in  sober  shade  you  see  the  web. 
'Tis  so,  I'll  wager,  with  this  Gypsy  chief — 
A  piece  of  stalwart  cunning,  nothing  more. 

JuAN". 

No!     My  invention  had  been  all  too  poor 

To  frame  this  Zarca  as  I  saw  him  first. 

'Twas  when  they  stripped  him.    In  his  chieftain's  gear. 

Amidst  his  men  he  seemed  a  royal  barb 

Followed  by  wild-maned  Andalusian  colts. 

He  had  a  necklace  of  a  strange  device 

In  finest  gold  of  unknown  workmanship, 

But  delicate  as  Moorish,  fit  to  kiss 

Fedalma's  neck,  and  play  in  shadows  there. 

He  wore  fine  mail,  a  rich-wrought  sword  and  belt. 

And  on  his  surcoat  black  a  broidered  torch, 

A  pine-branch  flaming,  grasped  by  two  dark  hands. 

But  when  they  stripped  him  of  his  ornaments 

It  was  the  baubles  lost  their  grace,  not  he. 

His  eyes,  his  mouth,  his  nostril,  all  inspired 

With  scorn  that  mastered  utterance  of  scorn. 

With  power  to  check  all  rage  until  it  turned 

To  ordered  force,  unleashed  on  chosen  prey — 

It  seemed  the  soul  within  him  made  his  limbs 

And  made  them  grand.     The  baubles  were  well  gone. 

He  stood  the  more  a  king,  when  bared  to  man. 

Blasco. 

Maybe.     But  nakedness  is  bad  for  trade. 
And  is  not  decent.     Well-wrought  metal,  sir. 
Is  not  a  bauble.     Had  you  seen  the  camp. 
The  royal  camp  at  Velez  Malaga, 
Ponce  de  Leon  and  the  other  dukes. 
The  king  himself  and  all  his  thousand  knights 
For  Ijody-guard,  'twould  not  have  left  yuu  breath 
To  praise  a  Gypsy  thus.     A  man's  a  man; 
But  when  you  sec  a  king,  you  see  the  work 
Of  many  thousand  men.     King  Ferdinand 
Bears  a  fine  presence,  and  hath  proper  limbs; 
But  what  though  he  were  shrunken  as  a  relic? 
You'd  see  the  gold  and  gems  that  cased  iiim  o'er. 
And  all  the  pages  round  him  in  brocade, 
And  all  the  lords,  themselves  a  sort  of  kings. 
Doing  him  reverence.     That  strikes  an  awe 


:J30  TJii;    ^jiAiSltjU    GYPSY. 

Into  a  common  man — especially 
A  judge  of  plate. 

Host. 

Faith,  very  wisely  said. 
Purge  thy  speech,  Juan.     It  is  over-full 
Of  this  same  Gypsy.     Praise  the  Catholic  King. 
And  come  now,  let  us  see  the  juggler's  skill. 

The  Plaga  Santiago. 

'Tis  daylight  still,  but  now  the  golden  cross 

Uplifted  by  the  angel  on  the  dome 

Stands  rayless  in  calm  color  clear-defined 

Against  the  northern  blue;  from  turrets  high 

The  flitting  splendor  sinks  with  folded  wing 

Dark-hid  till  morning,  and  the  battlements 

Wear  soft  relenting  whiteness  mellowed  o'er 

By  summers  generous  and  winters  bland. 

Now  in  the  east  the  distance  casts  its  veil 

And  gazes  with  a  deepening  earnestness. 

The  old  rain-fretted  mountains  in  their  robes 

Of  shadow-broken  gray;  the  rounded  hills 

Reddened  with  blood  of  Titans,  whose  huge  limbs. 

Entombed  within,  feed  full  the  hardy  flesh 

Of  cactus  green  and  blue  broad-sworded  aloes; 

The  cypress  soaring  black  above  the  lines 

Of  white  court-walls;  the  jointed  sugar-canes 

Pale-golden  with  their  feathers  motionless 

In  the  warm  quiet: — all  thought-teaching  form 

Utters  itself  in  firm  unshimmering  hues. 

For  the  great  rock  has  screened  the  westering  sun 

That  still  on  plains  beyond  streams  vaporous  gold 

Among  the  branches;  and  within  Bedmar 

Has  come  the  time  of  sweet  serenity 

When  color  glows  unglittering,  and  the  soul 

Of  visible  things  shows  silent  happiness. 

As  that  of  lovers  trusting  thougli  apart. 

The  ripe-cheeked  fruits,  the  crimson-petaled  flowers; 

The  winged  life  that  pausing  seems  a  gem 

Cunningly  carven  on  the  dark  green  leaf; 

The  face  of  man  with  hues  supremely  blent 

To  difference  fine  as  of  a  voice  ^mid  sounds: — 

Each  lovely  light-dipped  thing  seems  to  emerge 

Flushed  gravely  from  baptismal  sacrament. 


THE    SPANISH    GYPSY.  321 

All  beauteous  existence  rests,  yet  wakes, 
Lies  still,  yet  conscious,  with  clear  open  eyes 
And  gentle  breath  and  mild  suffused  joy. 
'Tis  day,  but  day  that  falls  like  melody 
Repeated  on  a  string  with  graver  tones  — 
Tones  such  as  linger  in  a  long  farewell. 

The  Pla^a  widens  in  the  passive  air  — 

The  Pla(;a  Santiago,  where  the  church, 

A  mosque  converted,  shows  an  eyeless  face 

Red-checkered,  faded,  doing  penance  still  — 

Bearing  with  Moorish  arch  the  imaged  saint. 

Apostle,  baron.  Spanish  warrior. 

Whose  charger's  hoofs  trample  the  turbaned  dead. 

Whose  banner  with  the  Cross,  the  bloody  sword 

Flashes  athwart  the  Moslem's  glazing  eye. 

And  mocks  his  trust  in  Allah  who  forsakes. 

Up  to  the  church  the  Pla9a  gently  slopes, 

In  shape  most  like  the  pious  palmer's  shell. 

Girdled  with  low  white  houses;  high  above 

Tower  the  strong  fortress  and  sharp-angled  wall 

And  well-flanked  castle  gate.     From  o'er  the  roofs. 

And  from  the  shadowed  patios  cool,  there  spreads 

The  breath  of  flowers  and  aromatic  leaves 

Soothing  the  sense  with  bliss  indefinite  — 

A  baseless  hope,  a  glad  presentiment. 

That  curves  the  lip  more  softly,  fills  the  eye 

With  more  indulgent  beam.     And  so  it  soothes, 

So  gently  sways  the  pulses  of  the  crowd 

Who  make  a  zone  about  the  central  spot 

Chosen  by  Roldan  for  his  theatre. 

Maids  with  arched  eyebrows,  delicate-penciled,  dark. 

Fold  their  round  arms  below  the  kerchief  full; 

Men  shoulder  little  girls;  and  grandames  gray. 

But  muscular  still,  hold  babies  on  their  arms: 

AVhile  motliers  keep  the  stout-legged  boys  in  front 

Against  their  skirts,  as  old  (Jreei^  ])ictures  show 

The  glorious  Mother  with  the  Boy  divine. 

Youths  keep  the  places  for  themselves,  and  roll 

Large  lazy  eyes,  and  call  recuml)e!it  dogs 

(P'or  reasons'deep  l)elow  the  roach  of  thought). 

The  old  men  cough  with  purpose,  wish  to  hint 

Wisdom  within  tliat  clieupons  jugglery. 

Maintain  a  n(Mitral  air,  and  knit  their  brows 

In  observation.     Xom^  are  quarrelsome. 


322  THE    SPANISH    GYPSY. 

Noisy,  or  very  merry;  for  their  blood 

Moves  slowly  into  fervor — they  rejoice 

Like  those  dark  birds  that  sweep  with  heavy  wing. 

Cheering  their  mates  with  melancholy  cries. 

But  now  the  gilded  balls  begin  to  play- 
In  rhythmic  numbers,  ruled  by  practice  fine 
Of  eye  and  muscle;  all  the  juggler's  form 
Consents  harmonious  in  swift-gliding  change. 
Easily  forward  stretched  or  backward  bent 
With  lightest  step  and  movement  circular 
Bound  a  fixed  point;  'tis  not  the  old  Eoldan  now. 
The  dull,  hard,  weary,  miserable  man. 
The  soul  all  parched  to  languid  appetite 
And  memory  of  desire;  'tis  wondrous  force 
That  moves  in  combination  multiform 
Toward  conscious  ends:  'tis  Eoldan  glorious. 
Holding  all  eyes  like  any  meteor, 
King  of  the  moment  save  when  Annibal 
Divides  the  scene  and  plays  the  comic  part. 
Gazing  with  blinking  glances  up  and  down 
Dancing  and  throwing  naught  and  catching  it. 
With  mimicry  as  merry  as  the  tasks 
Of  penance-working  shades  in  Tartarus. 

Pablo  stands  passive,  and  a  space  apart. 
Holding  a  viol,  waiting  for  command.  ^ 
Music  must  not  be  wasted,  but  must  rise 
As  needed  climax;  and  the  audience 
Is  growing  with  late  comers.     Juan  now. 
And  the  familiar  host,  with  Blasco  broad. 
Find  way  made  gladly  to  the  inmost  round 
Studded  Avith  heads.     Lorenzo  knits  the  crowd 
Into  one  family  by  showing  all 
Good-will  and  recognition.     Juan  casts 
His  large  and  rapid-measuring  glance  around; 
But — with  faint  quivering,  transient  as  a  breath 
Shaking  a  flame— his  eyes  make  sudden  pause 
Where  by  the  jutting  angk  of  a  street 
Castle-ward  leading,  stands  a  female  form, 
A  kerchief  pale  square-drooping  o'er  tho  brow. 
About  her  shoulders  dim  brown  serge— in  garb 
Most  like  a  peasant  woman  from  the  vale. 
Who  mi2;ht  have  lingered  after  marketing 
To  see  the  show.     What  thrill  mysterious. 


THE    SPANISH    GYPSY.  32-} 

Eay-borne  from  orb  to  orb  of  conscious  eyes, 

The  swift  observing  sweep  of  Juan's  glance 

Arrests  an  instant,  then  with  prompting  fresh 

Diverts  it  histingly?    He  turns  at  once 

To  watch  the  gilded  balls,  and  nod  and  smile 

At  little  round  Pepita,  blondest  maid 

In  all  Bed  mar — Pepita,  fair  yet  flecked. 

Saucy  of  lip  and  nose,  of  hair  as  red 

As  breasts  of  robins  stepping  on  the  snow — 

Who  stands  in  front  with  little  tapping  feet. 

And  baby-dimpled  hands  that  hide  enclosed 

Those  sleeping  crickets,  the  dark  castanets. 

But  soon  the  gilded  balls  have  ceased  to  jilay 

And  Annibal  is  leaping  through  the  hoops. 

That  turn  to  twelve,  meeting  him  as  he  flies 

In  the  swift  circle.     Sliuddering  he  leaps, 

But  with  each  spring  flies  swift  and  swifter  still 

To  loud  and  louder  shouts,  while  the  great  hoops 

Are  changed  to  smaller.     Now  the  crowd  is  fired. 

The  motion  swift,  the  living  victim  urged. 

The  imminent  failure  and  repeated  scape 

Hurry  all  pulses  and  intoxicate 

With  subtle  wine  of  passion  many-mixed. 

'Tis  all  about  a  monkey  leaping  hard 

Till  near  to  gasj^ing;  but  it  serves  as  well 

As  the  great  circus  or  arena  dire. 

Where  these  are  lacking.     Roldan  cautiously 

Slackens  the  leaps  aud  lays  the  hoops  to  rest. 

And  Annibal  retires  with  reeling  brain 

And  backward  stagger — pity,  he  could  not  smile  I 

Now  Eoldan  spreads  his  carpet,  now  he  shows 

Strange  metamorphoses:  the  pebble  black 

Changes  to  whitest  egg  within  his  hand;     . 

A  staring  rabbit,  with  retreating  ears. 

Is  swallowed  by  the  air  and  vanishes; 

He  tells  men's  thoughts  about  the  shaken  dice. 

Their  secret  choosiugs;  makes  the  white  beans  pass 

With  causeless  act  sublime  from  cup  to  cup 

Turned  empty  on  the  ground — diablerie 

That  pales  the  girls  and  puzzles  all  the  boys: 

These  tricks  are  samples,  hinting  to  the  town 

Roldan's  great  mastery.     He  tumbles  next, 

And  Annibal  is  called  to  mock  each  feat 

With  arduous  comicality  and  save 


324  THE   SPANISH   GYPSY, 

By  rule  romantic  the  great  public  mind 
(And  Eoldan's  body)  from  too  serious  strain. 

But  with  the  tumbling,  lest  the  feats  should  fail 

And  so  need  veiling  in  a  haze  of  sound, 

Pablo  awakes  the  viol  and  the  bow  — 

The  masculine  bow  that  draws  the  woman's  heart 

From  out  the  strings,  and  makes  them  cry,  yearn,  plead. 

Tremble,  exult,  with  mystic  union 

Of  joy  acute  and  tender  suffering. 

To  play  the  viol  and  discreetly  mix 

Alternate  with  the  bow's  keen  biting  tones 

The  throb  responsive  to  the  finger's  touch, 

Was  rarest  skill  that  Pablo  half  had  caught 

From  an  old  blind  and  wandering  Catalan; 

The  other  half  was  rather  heritage 

From  treasure  stored  by  generations  past 

In  winding  chambers  of  receptive  sense. 

The  winged  sounds  exalt  the  thick -pressed  crowd 

With  a  new  pulse  in  common,  blending  all 

The  gazing  life  into  one  larger  soul 

With  dimly  widened  consciousness:  as  waves 

In  heightened  movement  tell  of  waves  far  off. 

And  the  light  changes;  westward  stationed  clouds. 

The  sun's  ranged  outposts,  luminous  message  spread, 

Housing  quiescent  things  to  doff  their  shade 

And  show  themselves  as  added  audience. 

Now  Pablo,  letting  fall  the  eager  bow. 

Solicits  softer  murmurs  from  the  strings, 

And  now  above  them  pours  a  wondrous  voice 

(Such  as  Greek  reapers  heard  in  Sicily) 

With  Avounding  rapture  in  it,  like  love's  arrows; 

And  clear  upon  clear  air  as  colored  gems 

Dropped  in  a  crystal  cup  of  water  pure, 

Fall  words  of  sadness,  simple,  lyrical: 

Sprmg  comes  hither. 

Buds  the  rose; 
Roses  loither, 

Siveet  spring  goes. 
Ojala,  tuould  she  carry  me  f 

Summer  soars  — 
Wi(h>  -  w  i  uged  day 


THE    SPANISH    GYPSY.  325 

White  light  'pours, 
Flies  mvay. 
Ojala,  loould  he  carry  me  ! 

Soft  toinds  bloio, 

Westward  horn. 
Onward  go 

TouHird  the  morn. 
Ojala,  would  they  carry  me  I 

Sweet  birds  sing 

O'er  the  graves, 
Then  take  loing 
O'er  the  waves. 
Ojala,  loould  they  carry  me  ! 

When  the  voice  paused  and  left  the  viol's  note 
To  plead  forsaken,  'twas  as  when  a  cloud 
Hiding  the  sun,  makes  all  the  leaves  and  flowers 
Shiver,     But  when  with  measured  change  the  strings 
Had  taught  regret  new  longing,  clear  again. 
Welcome  as  hope  recovered,  flowed  the  voice. 

Warm  whispering  through  the  slender  olive  leaves 
Came  to  me  a  gentle  sound, 
Whispering  of  a  secret  found 

In  the  clear  sunshine  'mid  the  golden  sheaves: 

Said  it  was  sleeping  for  me  in,  the  morn. 
Called  it  gladness,  called  it  joy. 
Drew  me  on — "Come  hither,  boy" — 

To  where  the  blue  loings  rested  on  the  corn. 

I  thought  the  gentle  sound  had  whispered  true — 
Thouglit  the  little  heaven  mine, 
Leaned  to  clutch  the  thing  divine. 

And  saw  the  blue  luings  melt  loithin  the  blue. 

The  long  notes  linger  on  the  trembling  air, 

With  subtle  penetration  enter  all 

The  myriad  corridors  of  the  j)assionate  soul. 

Message-like  spread,  and  answering  action  rouse. 

Not  angular  jigs  that  warm  the  chilly  limbs 

In  lioary  nortliern  mists,  but  action  curved 

To  soft  andante  strains  pitched  plaintively. 

A'^ibrations  sympathetic  stir  all  limbs: 

Old  men  live  backward  in  their  ilanciug  prime, 


326  THE    SPANISH    GYPSY. 

And  move  in  memory;  small  legs  and  arms 
With  pleasant  agitation  purposeless 
Go  up  and  down  like  pretty  fruits  in  gales. 
All  long  in  common  for  the  expressive  act 
Yet  wait  for  it;  as  in  the  olden  time 
Men  waited  for  the  bard  to  tell  their  thought. 
"The  dance!  the  dance!"  is  shouted  all  around. 
Now  Pablo  lifts  the  bow,  Pepita  now, 
Eeady  as  bird  that  sees  the  sprinkled  corn. 
When  Juan  nods  and  smiles,  puts  forth  her  foot 
And  lifts  her  arm  to  wake  the  castanets. 
Juan  advances,  too,  from  out  the  ring 
And  bends  to  quit  his  lute;  for  now  the  scene 
Is  empty;  Eoidan  wear}^  gathers  pence. 
Followed  by  Annibal  with  purse  and  stick. 
The  carpet  lies  a  colored  isle  untrod. 
Inviting  feet:  "  The  dance,  the  dance,"  resounds. 
The  bow  entreats  with  slow  melodic  strain. 
And  all  the  air  with  expectation  yearns. 

Sudden,  with  gliding  motion  like  a  flame 

That  through  dim  vapor  makes  a  path  of  glory, 

A  figure  lithe,  all  white  and  saffron-robed. 

Flashed  right  across  the  circle,  and  noAV  stood 

Witli  ripened  arms  uplift  and  regal  head, 

Like  some  tall  flower  whose  dark  and  intense  heart 

Lies  half  within  a  tulip-tinted  cup. 

Juan  stood  fixed  and  pale;  Pepita  stepped 
Backward  within  the  ring:  the  voices  fell 
From  shouts  insistent  to  more  passive  tones 
Half  meaning  welcome,  half  astonishment. 
"Lady  Fedalma! — will  she  dance  for  us?" 

Biit  she,  sole  swayed  by  impulse  passionate. 

Feeling  all  life  was  music  and  all  eyes 

The  warming  quickening  light  that  music  makes. 

Moved  as,  in  dance  religious,  Miriam, 

When  on  the  Red  Sea  shore  she  raised  her  voice 

And  led  the  chorus  of  the  people's  joy; 

Or  as  the  Trojan  maids  that  reverent  sang 

Watching  the  sorrow-crowned  Hecuba: 

Moved  in  slow  curves  voluminous,  gradual. 

Feeling  and  action  flowing  into  one, 

In  Eden's  natural  taintless  marriage-bond; 


THE   SPANISH   GYPSY.  337 

Ardently  modest,  sensuously  pure, 

With  young  delight  that  wonders  at  itself 

And  throbs  as  innocent  as  opening  flowers. 

Knowing  not  comment — soilless,  beautiful. 

The  spirit  in  her  gravely  glowing  face 

With  sweet  community  informs  her  limbs. 

Filling  their  fine  gradation  with  the  breath 

Of  virgin  majesty;  as  full  voweled  words 

Are  new  impregnate  with  the  master's  thought. 

Even  the  chance-strayed  delicate  tendrils  black, 

That  backward  'scape  from  out  her  wreathing  hair — 

Even  the  pliant  folds  that  cling  transverse 

When  with  obliquely  soaring  bend  altern 

She  seems  a  goddess  quitting  earth  again — 

Gather  exi^ression — a  soft  undertone 

And  resonance  exquisite  from  the  grand  chord 

Of  her  harmoniously  bodied  soul. 

At  first  a  reverential  silence  guards 

The  eager  senses  of  the  gazing  crowd: 

They  hold  their  breath,  and  live  by  seeing  her. 

But  soon  the  admiring  tension  finds  relief — 

Sighs  of  delight,  applausive  murmurs  low. 

And  stirrings  gentle  as  of  eared  corn 

Or  seed-bent  grasses,  when  the  ocean's  breath 

Spreads  landward.     Even  Juan  is  impelled 

By  the  swift-traveling  movement:  fear  and  doubt 

Give  way  before  the  hurrying  energy; 

He  takes  his  lute  and  strikes  in  fellowship, 

Filling  more  full  the  rill  of  melody 

Eaised  ever  and  anon  to  clearest  flood 

By  Pablo's  voice,  that  dies  aw.iy  too  soon, 

Like  the  sweet  blackbird's  fragmentary  chant. 

Yet  wakes  again,  with  varying  rise  and  fall. 

In  songs  that  seem  emergent  memories  ^ 

Prompting  brief  utterance — little  cancious 

And  villancicos,  Andalusia-born. 

Pablo  (sings). 

It  was  in  the  prime 

Of  the  sweet  Sjyrincj-time. 

In  the  linnet's  throat 

Trembled  the  love-note. 
And  the  love  stirred  air 


328  THE   SPANISH    GYPSY. 

TJirilled  the  diossoms  there. 
Little  shadows  danced 

Each  a  tiny  elf, 
Happy  in  large  light 

And  the  thinnest  self. 

It  tvas  hit  a  minute 

In  a  far-off  S])ring, 

But  each  gentle  thing, 
Siveetly-wooing  linnet, 
Soft-thrilled  haivthorn  tree, 

Happy  shadoivy  elf 
With  the  thinnest  self. 

Live  still  on  in  me. 
0  the  sioeet,  siceet  prime 
Of  the  past  Spring-time  ! 

And  still  the  light  is  changing:  high  above 
Float  soft  pink  clouds;  others  with  deeper  flush 
Stretch  like  flamingos  bending  toward  the  south. 
Comes  a  more  solemn  brilliance  o'er  the  sky 
A  meaning  more  intense  upon  the  air — 
The  inspiration  of  the  dying  day. 
And  Juan  now,  when  Pablo's  notes  subside, 
Soothes  the  regretful  ear,  and  breaks  the  pause 
With  masculine  voice  in  deep  antiphouy. 

JuAisr  {sings). 

Day  is  dying  !    Float,  0  song, 

Down  the  westward  river, 
Requiem  clianting  to  the  Day — 

Day,  the  mighty  Giver. 

Pierced  hy  shafts  of  Time  he  bleeds, 

Melted  rabies  sending 
Through  the  river  and  the  shy, 

Earth  and  heaven  blending; 

All  the  long-drawn  earthy  banhs 

Up  to  cloud-land  lifting: 
Slow  between  them  drifts  the  swan, 

'T'wixt  two.  heavois  drifting. 


THE    SPANISH    GYPSY.  339 

Wings  half  open,  like  aflow'r 

Inly  deepei'  flushing , 
Neck  and  breast  as  virgin's  pure — 
Virgin  proudly  blushing. 

Day  is  dying  !     Float,  0  swan, 

Doion  the  ruby  river; 
Follow,  song,  in  requiem 

To  the  mighty  Giver. 

The  exquisite  hour,  the  ardor  of  the  crowd, 

The  strains  more  plenteous,  and  the  gathering  mighv, 

Of  action  passionate  where  no  effort  is. 

But  self's  poor  gates  open  to  rushing  power 

That  blends  the  inward  ebb  and  outward  vast — 

All  gathering  influences  culminate 

And  urge  Fedalma.     Earth  and  heaven  seem  one. 

Life  a  glad  trembling  on  the  outer  edge 

Of  unknown  rapture.     Swifter  now  she  moves. 

Filling  the  measure  with  a  double  beat 

And  widening  circle;  now  she  seems  to  glow 

With  more  declared  presence,  glorified. 

Circling,  she  lightly  bends  and  lifts  on  high 

The  multitudinous-sounding  tambourine. 

And  makes  it  ring  and  boom,  then  lifts  it  higher 

Stretching  her  left  arm  beauteous;  now  the  crowd 

Exnltant  shouts,  forgetting  poverty 

In  the  rich  moment  of  possessing  her. 

But  sudden,  at  one  point,  the  exultant  throng 
Is  pushed  and  hustled,  and  then  thrust  apart; 
Something  approaches — something  cuts  the  ring 
Of  jubilant  idlers — startling  as  a  streak 
From  alien  wounds  across  the  blooming  flesh 
Of  careless  sporting  childhood.     'Tis  the  band 
Of  Gypsy  prisoners.     Soldiers  lead  the  van 
And  make  sparse  flanking  guard,  aloof  surveyed 
By  gallant  Lopez,  stringent  in  command. 
The  Gypsies  cliained  in  couples,  all  save  one. 
Walk  in  dark  file  with  grand  bare  legs  and  arms 
And  savage  melancholy  in  their  eyes 
That  star-like  gjeam  from  out  black  clouds  of  hair; 
Now  tliey  are  full  in  siglit;  and  now  they  stretch 
Eight  to  the  center  of  the  open  space. 
Fedalma  now,  with  gentle  wheeling  sweep 


330  THE   SPAiflSH    GYPSY.  > 

Returning,  like  the  loveliest  of  the  Hours 
Strayed  from  her  sisters,  truant  lingering. 
Faces  again  the  center,  swings  again 

The  unlifted  tambourine 

When  lo!  with  sound 
Stupendous  throbbing,  solemn  as  a  voice 
Sent  by  the  invisible  choir  of  all  the  dead, 
Tolls  the  great  passing  bell  that  calls  to  prayer 
For  souls  departed:  at  the  mighty  beat 
It  seems  the  light  sinks  awe-struck — 'tis  the  note 
Of  the  sun's  burial;  speech  and  action  pause; 
Religious  silence  and  the  holy  sign 
Of  everlasting  memories  (the  sign 
Of  death  that  turned  to  more  diffusive  life) 
Pass  o'er  the  Plaga.     Little  children  gaze 
With  lips  a^^art,  and  feel  the  unknown  god; 
And  the  most  men  and  women  pray.     Not  all. 
The  soldiers  pray;  the  Gypsies  stand  unmoved 
As  pagan  statues  with  proud  level  gaze. 
But  he  who  wears  a  solitary  chain 
Heading  the  file,  has  turned  to  face  Fedalma. 
She  motionless,  with  arm  uplifted,  guards 
The  tambourine  aloft  (lest,  sudden-lowered. 
Its  trivial  jingle  mar  the  duteous  pause). 
Reveres  the  general  prayer,  but  prays  not,  stands 
With  level  glance  meeting  the  Gypsy's  eyes, 
That  seem  to  her  the  sadness  of  the  world 
Rebuking  her,  the  great  bell's  hidden  thought 
Now  first  unveiled — the  sorrows  unredeemed 
Of  races  outcast,  scorned,  and  wandering. 
Why  does  he  look  at  her?  why  she  at  him? 
As  if  the  meeting  light  between  their  eyes 
Made  i^ermanent  union?     His  deep-knit  brow. 
Inflated  nostril,  scornful  lip  compressed. 
Seem  a  dark  hieroglyj^h  of  coming  fate 
Written  before  her.     Father  Isidor 
Had  terrible  eyes  and  was  her  ememy; 
Slie  knew  it  and  defied  him;  all  her  soul 
Rounded  and  hardened  in  its  separateness 
When  they  encountered.     But  this  prisoner — 
This  Gypsy,  passing,  gazing  casually — 
Was  he  her  enemy  too?     She  stood  all  quelled. 
The  impetuous  joy  that  hurried  in  her  veins 
Seemed  backward  rushing  turned  to  chillest  awe. 
Uneasy  wonder,  and  a  vague  self-doubt. 


THE   SPANISH   GYPSY.  331 

The  miuute  brief  stretched  measureless,  dream-filled 
By  a  dilated  new-fraught  consciousness. 

Now  it  was  gone;  the  pious  murmur  ceased. 
The  Gypsies  all  moved  onward  at  command 
And  careless  noises  blent  confusedly. 
But  the  ring  closed  again,  and  many  ears 
Waited  for  Pablo's  music,  many  eyes 
Turned  toward  the  carpet:  it  lay  "bare  and  dim. 
Twilight  was  there — the  bright  Fedalma  gone. 

A  handsome  room  in  the  Castle.     On  a  table  a  rich  jeivel- 

cashet. 

Silva  had  doffed  his  mail  and  with  it  all 

The  heavier  harness  of  his  warlike  cares. 

He  had  not  seen  Fedalma;  miser-like 

He  hoarded  through  the  hour  a  costlier  joy 

By  longing  oft-repressed.     Now  it  was  earned; 

And  with  observance  wonted  he  would  send 

To  ask  admission,     Spanish  gentlemen 

Who  wooed  fair  dames  of  noble  apcestry 

Did  homage  with  rich  tunics  and  slashed  sleeves 

And  outward-surging  linen's  costly  snow; 

With  broidered  scarf  transverse,  and  rosary 

Handsomely  wrought  to  fit  high-blooded  prayer; 

So  hinting  in  how  deep  respect  they  held 

That  self  they  threw  before  their  lady's  feet. 

And  Silva — that  Fedalma's  rate  should  stand 

No  jot  below  the  highest,  that  her  love 

Might  seem  to  all  the  royal  gift  it  was — 

Turned  every  trifle  in  his  mien  and  garb 

To  scrupulous  language,  uttering  to  the  world 

That  since  she  loved  him  he  went  carefully. 

Bearing  a  thing  so  precious  in  his  hand. 

A  man  of  high -wrought  strain,  fastidious 

In  his  acceptance,  dreading  all  delight 

That  speedy  dies  and  turns  to  carrion: 

His  senses  much  exacting,  deep  instilled 

With  keen  imagination's  airy  needs; — 

Like  strong-limbed  monsters  studded  o'er  with  eyes, 

Their  hunger  checked  by  overwhelming  vision. 

Or  that  fierce  lion  in  symbolic  dream 

Snatched  from  the  ground  by  wings  and  new-endowed 

With  a  man's  thought-propelled  relenting  heart. 


333  THE   SPANISH    GYPSY. 

Silva  was  both  the  lion  and  the  man; 

First  hesitating  shrank,  then  fiercely  sprang, 

Or  having  sprung,  turned  pallid  at  his  deed 

And  loosed  the  prize,  paying  his  blood  for  naught. 

A  nature  half-transformed,  with  qualities 

That  oft  bewrayed  each  other,  elements 

Not  blent  but  struggling,  breeding  strange  effects, 

Piigsing  the  reckoning  of  his  friends  or  foes. 

Haughty  and  generous,  grave  and  passionate; 

With  tidal  moments  of  devoutest  awe. 

Sinking  anon  to  farthest  ebb  of  doubt; 

Deliberating  ever,  till  the  string 

Of  a  recurrent  ardor  made  him  rush 

Eight  against  reasons  that  himself  had  drilled 

And  marshaled  painfully.     A  spirit  framed 

Too  proudly  special  for  obedience. 

Too  subtly  pondering  for  mastery: 

Born  of  a  goddess  with  a  mortal  "sire, 

Heir  of  flesh-fettered,  weak  divinity. 

Doom-gifted  with  long  resonant  consciousness 

And  perilous  heightening  of  the  sentient  soul. 

But  look  less  curiously:  life  itself 

May  not  express  us  all,  may  leave  the  worst 

And  the  best  too,  like  tunes  in  mechanism 

Nevei-  awaked.     In  various  catalogues 

Objects  stand  variously.     Silva  stands 

As  a  young  Spaniard,  handsome,  noble,  brave. 

With  titles  many,  high  in  pedigree; 

Or,  as  a  nature  quiveringly  jioised 

In  reach  of  storms,  whose  qualities  may  turn 

To  murdered  virtues  that  still  walk  as  ghosts 

Within  the  shuddering  soul  and  shriek  remorse; 

Or,  as  a  lover In  the  screening  time 

Of  purple  blossoms,  when  the  petals  crowd 
And  softly  crush  like  cherub  cheeks  in  heaven. 
Who  thinks  of  greenly  withered  fruit  and  worms? 
0  the  warm  southern  spring  is  beauteous! 
And  in  love's  spring  all  good  seems  possible: 
No  threats,  all  promise,  brooklets  ripple  full 
And  bathe  the  rushes,  vicious  crawling  things 
Are  pretty  eggs,  the  sun  shines  graciously 
And  parches  not,  the  silent  rain  beats  warm 
As  childhood's  kisses,  days  are  young  and  grow. 
And  earth  seems  in  its  sweet  beginning  time 
Fresh  made  for  two  who  live  in  Paradise. 


THE   SPANISH   GYPSY.  333 

Silva  is  in  love's  spring,  its  freshness  breathed 

Within  his  soul  along  the  dusty  ways 

While  marching  homeward;  'tis  around  him  now 

As  in  a  garden  fenced  in  for  delight, — 

And  he  may  seek*  delight.     Smiling  he  lifts 

A  whistle  from  his  belt,  but  lets  it  fall 

Ere  it  has  reached  his  lij^s,  jarred  by  the  sound 

Of  usher's  knocking,  and  a  voice  that  craves 

Admission  for  the  Prior  of  San  Domingo. 

Prior  {entering). 

You  look  perturbed,  my  son.     I  thrust  myself 
Between  you  and  some  beckoning  intent 
That  wears  a  face  more  smiling  than  my  own. 

Don"  Silva. 

Father,  enough  that  you  are  here.     I  wait. 

As  always,  your  commands — nay,  should  have  sought 

An  early  audience. 

Prior. 

To  give,  I  trust, 
Good  reasons  for  your  change  of  policy? 

Don"  Silva. 
Strong  reasons,  father. 

Prior. 

Ay,  but  are  they  good? 
I  have  known  reasons  strong,  but  strongly  evil. 

Don  Silva. 

'Tis  possible.     I  but  deliver  mine 

To  your  strict  judgment.     Late  dispatches  sent 

With  urgence  by  the  Count  of  Bavien, 

No  hint  on  my  "part  prompting,  with  besides 

The  testified  concurrence  of  the  king 

And  our  Grand  Master,  have  made  peremptory 

The  course  which  else  had  been  but  rational. 

Without  the  forces  furnished  by  allies 

The  siege  of  Guadix  would  be  madness.     More, 

El  Zagal  has  his  eyes  upon  Bcdmar: 


334  THE    SPAJS'ISH    GYPSY. 

Let  liim  attempt  it:  iu  three  weeks  from  hence 
The  Master  and  the  Lord  of  Aguilar 
Will  bring  their  forces.     We  shall  catch  the  Moors, 
The  last  gleaned  clusters  of  their  bravest  men. 
As  in  a  trap.     You  have  my  reasons,  father. 

Peioe. 

And  they  sound  well.     But  free-tongued  rumor  adds 

A  pregnant  supplement — in  substance  this: 

That  inclination  snatches  arguments 

To  make  indulgence  seem  judicious  choice; 

That  you,  commanding  in  God's  Holy  War, 

Lift  prayers  to  Satan  to  retard  the  fight 

And  give  you  time  for  feasting — wait  a  siege. 

Call  daring  enterprise  impossible. 

Because  you'd  marry!     You,  a  Sjianish  duke, 

Christ's  general,  would  marry  like  a  clown. 

Who,  selling  fodder  dearer  for  the  war, 

Is  all  the  merrier;  nay,  like  the  brutes. 

Who  know  no  awe  to  check  their  appetite, 

Coupling  'mid  heaps  of  slain,  while  still  in  front 

The  battle  rages. 


Is  eloquent,  father. 


DON^   SiLVA. 

Kumor  on  your  lips 


Peioe. 
Is  she  true? 


Don  Silva. 

Perhaps. 
I  seek  to  justify  my  public  acts 
And  not  my  private  joy.     Before  the  world 
Enough  if  I  am  faithful  in  command. 
Betray  not  by  my  deeds,  swerve  from  no  task 
My  knightly  vows  constrain  me  to:  herein 
I  ask  all  men  to  test  me. 

Peioe. 

Knightly  vows? 
Is  it  by  their  constraint  that  you  must  marry? 


THE   SPANISH   GYPSY.  335 


Don  Silva. 


Marriage  is  not  a  breach  of  them.     I  use 

A  sanctioned  liberty your  j^ardon,  fathei, 

I  need  not  teach  you  what  the  Church  decrees. 
But  facts  may  weaken  texts,  and  so  dry  up 
The  fount  of  eloquence.     The  Church  relaxed 
Our  Order's  rule  before  I  took  the  vows. 

Prioe. 

Ignoble  liberty!  you  snatch  your  rule 

From  what  God  tolerates,  not  what  he  loves? — 

Inquire  what  lo^^i  est  offering  may  suffice, 

Cheapen  it  meanly  to  an  obolus. 

Buy,  and  then  count  the  coin  left  in  your  purse 

For  your  debauch? — Measure  obedience 

By  scantest  powers  of  brethren  whose  frail  flesh 

Our  Holy  Church  indulges? — Ask  great  Law, 

The  rightful  Sovereign  of  the  human  soul. 

For  what  it  pardons,  not  what  it  commands? 

0  fallen  knighthood,  penitent  of  high  vows. 
Asking  a  charter  to  degrade  itself! 

Such  poor  apology  of  rules  relaxed 
Blunts  not  suspicion  of  that  doubleness 
Your  enemies  tax  you  with. 

Don  Silva. 

Oh,  for  the  rest. 
Conscience  is  harder  than  our  enemies. 
Knows  more,  accuses  with  more  nicety, 
Nor  needs  to  question  Rumor  if  we  fall 
Below  the  perfect  model  of  our  thought. 

1  fear  no  outward  arbiter. — You  smile? 

Prior. 

Ay,  at  the  contrast  'twixt  your  portraiture 

And  the  true  image  of  your  conscience,  shown 

As  now  I  see  it  in  your  acts.     I  see 

A  drunken  sentinel  who  gives  alarm 

At  his  own  shadow,  but  when  scalers  snatch 

His  weai^on  from  his  hand  smiles  idiot-like 

At  games  he's  dreaming  of. 


336  THE   SPANISH    GYPSY. 


Don  Silya. 


A  parable! 
The  husk  is  rough — holds  something  bitter,  doubtless. 

Peior. 

Oh,  the  husk  gapes  with  meaning  over-ripe. 
You  boast  a  conscience  that  controls  your  deeds, 
AVatches  your  knightly  armor,  guards  your  rank 
From  stain  of  treachery — you,  helpless  slave, 
Whose  will  lies  nerveless  in  the  clutch  of  lust — 
Of  blind  mad  passion — passion  itself  most  helpless. 
Storm-driven,  like  the  monsters  of  the  sea. 
0  famous  conscience! 

Don  Silva. 

Pause  there!     Leave  unsaid 
Aught  that  will  match  that  text.  More  were  too  much, 
Even  from  holy  lips.     I  own  no  love 
But  such  as  guards  my  honor,  since  it  guards 
Hers  whom  I  love!     I  suffer  no  foul  words  * 

To  stain  the  gift  I  lay  before  her  feet; 
And,  being  hers,  my  honor  is  more  safe. 

Prior. 

Versemakers'  talk!  fit  for  a  world  of  rhymes. 

Where  facts  are  feigned  to  tickle  idle  ears. 

Where  good  and  evil  play  at  tournament 

And  end  in  amity — a  world  of  lies — 

A  carnival  of  words  where  every  year 

Stale  falsehoods  serve  fresh  men.     Your  honor  safe? 

What  honor  has  a  man  with  double  bonds? 

Honor  is  shifting  as  the  shadows  are 

To  souls  that  turn  their  passions  into  laws. 

A  Christian  kniarht  who  weds  an  infidel 

Don  Silva  {fiercely). 
An  infidel! 

Prior. 

May  one  day  spurn  the  Cross, 
And  call  that  honor! — one  day  find  liis  sword 
Stained  with  his  brother's  blood,  and  call  that  honor! 


THE    SPAKISH    GYPSY.  337 

Apostates'  honor? — harlots'  chastity! 
Eenegados'  faithfulness? — Iscariot's! 

Don  Silva. 

Strong  words  and  burning;  but  they  scorch  not  me. 
Fedalma  is  a  daughter  of  the  Church — 
Has  been  baptized  and  nurtured  in  the  faith. 

Pkior. 

Ay,  as  a  thousand  Jewesses,,  who  yet 
Are  brides  of  Satan  in  a  robe  of  flames. 

Don  Silva. 

Fedalma  is  no  Jewess,  bears  no  marks 
That  tell  of  Hebrew  blood. 

Prior. 

She  bears  the  marks 
Of  races  unbaptized,  that  never  bowed 
Before  the  holy  signs,  were  never  moved 
By  stirrings  of  the  sacramental  gifts. 

Don  Silva  {scornfully). 

Holy  accusers  practice  palmistry. 

And,  other  witness  lacking,  read  the  skin. 

Prior. 

I  read  a  deeper  record  than  the  skin. 
What!     Sliall  the  trick  of  nostrils  and  of  lips 
Descend  tlirough  generations,  and  the  soul 
That  moves  within  our  frame  like  God  in  worlds — 
Convulsing,  urging,  melting,  withering — 
Imprint  no  record,  leave  no  documents, 
Of  her  great  history?     Shall  men  bequeath 
The  fancies  of  their  palate  to  their  sons. 
And  shall  the  shudder  of  restraining  awe. 
The  slow-wept  tears  of  contrite  memory. 
Faith's  prayerful  labor,  and  the  food  divine 
Of  fasts  ecstatic — shall  these  pass  away 
Like  wind  upon  the  waters,  tracklessly? 
Shall  the  mere  curl  of  eyelashes  remam, 
23 


338  THE   SPANISH    GYPSY. 

And  god-enslirining  symbols  leave  no  trace 
Of  tremors  reverent? — That  maiden's  blood 
Is  as  unchristian  as  the  leopard's. 

Don  Silva. 

Unchristian  as  the  Blessed  Virgin's  blood 
Before  the  angel  spoke  the  word,  "All  hail!" 

Price  {smiling  Mtterly). 

Said  I  not  truly?    See,  your  passion  weaves 
Already  blasphemies! 

Don  Silva. 

'Tis  you  provoke  them. 

Prior. 

I  strive,  as  still  the  Holy  Spirit  strives, 

To  move  the  will  perverse.     But,  failing  this, 

God  commands  other  means  to  save  our  blood. 

To  save  Castilian  glory — nay,  to  save 

The  name  of  Christ  from  blot  of  traitorous  deeds. 

Don  Silva. 

Of  traitorous  deeds!     Age,  kindred,  and  your  cowl. 

Give  an  ignoble  license  to  your  tongue. 

As  for  your  threats,  fulfill  them  at  your  peril. 

'Tis  you,  not  I,  will  gibbet  our  great  name 

To  rot  in  infamy.     If  I  am  strong 

In  patience  now,  trust  me,  I  can  be  strong 

Then  m  defiance. 

Prior. 

Miserable  man! 
Your  strength  will  turn  to  anguish,  like  the  strength 
Of  fallen  angels.     Can  you  change  your  blood? 
You  are  a  Christian,  with  the  Christian  awe 
In  every  vein.     A  Spanish  noble,  born 
To  .serve  your  people  and  your  people's  faith. 
Strong,  are  you?     Turn  your  back  upon  the  Cross — 
Its  shadow  is  before  you.     Leave  your  place: 
Quit  the  great  ranks  of  knighthood:  you  will  walk 


THE   SPANISH    GYPSY.  339 

Forever  with  a  tortured  double  self, 

A  self  that  will  be  hungry  while  you  feast. 

Will  blush  with  shame  while  you  are  glorified. 

Will  feel  the  ache  and  chill  of  desolation. 

Even  in  the  very  bosom  of  your  love. 

Mate  yourself  with  this  woman,  fit  for  what? 

To  make  the  sport  of  Moorish  palaces, 

A  lewd  Herodias 

Don  Silva, 

Stop!  no  other  man, 
Priest  though  he  were,  had  had  his  throat  left  free 
For  passage  of  those  words.     I  would  have  clutched 
His  serpent's  neck,  and  flung  him  out  to  hell! 
A  monk  must  needs  defile  the  name  of  love; 
He  knows  it  but  as  tempting  devils  paint  it. 
You  think  to  scare  my  love  from  its  resolve 
With  arbitrary  consequences,  strained 
By  rancorous  effort  from  the  thinnest  motes 
Of  possibility? — cite  hideous  lists 
Of  sins  irrelevant,  to  frighten  me 
With  bugbears'  names,  as  women  fright  a  child? 
Poor  pallid  wisdom,  taught  by  inference 
From  blood-drained  life,  where  phantom  terrors  rule. 
And  all  achievement  is  to  leave  undone! 
Paint  the  day  dark,  make  sunshine  cold  to  me. 
Abolish  the  earth's  fairness,  prove  it  all 
A  fiction  of  my  eyes — then,  after  that. 
Profane  Fedalma. 

Pkioe. 

0  there  is  no  need: 
She  has  profaned  herself.     Go,  raving  man. 
And  see  her  dancing  now.     Go,  see  your  bride 
Flaunting  her  beauties  grossly  in  the  gaze 
Of  vulgar  idlers — eking  out  the  show 
Made  in  the  Pla9a  by  a  mountebank. 
I  hinder  you  no  farther. 

Don  Silva. 

It  is  false! 

Prior. 
Go,  prove  it  false,  then. 


340  THE    SPANISH    GYPSY. 


[Father  Isidor 

Drew  on  his  cowl  and  turned  away.     The  face 

That  flashed  anathemas,  in  swift  eclipse 

Seemed  Silva's  vanished  confidence.     In  haste 

He  rushed  unsignaled  through  the  corridor 

To  where  the  Duchess  once,  Fedahna  now. 

Had  residence  retired  from  din  of  arms — 

Knocked,  opened,  found  all  empty — said 

With  muffled  voice,  "Fedalma!" — called  more  loud, 

More  oft  on  Inez,  the  old  trusted  nurse — 

Then  searched  the  terrace-garden,  calling  still. 

But  heard  no  answering  sound,  and  saw  no  face 

Save  painted  faces  staring  all  unmoved 

By  agitated  tones.     He  hurried  back. 

Giving  half -conscious  orders  as  he  went 

To  page  and  usher,  that  they  straight  should  seek 

Lady  Fedalma;  then  with  stinging  shame 

Wished  himself  silent;  reached  again  the  room 

Where  still  the  Father's  menace  seemed  to  hang 

Thickening  the  air;  snatched  cloak  and  plumed  hat. 

And  grasped,  not  knowing  why,  his  poniard's  hilt; 

Then  checked  himself  and  said: — ] 

If  he  spoke  truth! 
To  know  were  wound  enough — to  see  the  truth 
Were  fire  upon  the  wound.     It  must  be  false! 
His  hatred  saw  amiss,  or  snatched  mistake 
In  other  men's  report.     I  am  a  fool! 
But  where  can  she  be  gone?  gone  secretly? 
And  in  my  absence?     Oh,  she  meant  no  wrong! 
I  am  a  fool! — ^But  where  can  she  be  gone? 
With  only  liiez?     Oh,  she  meant  no  wrong! 
I  swear  she  never  meant  it.     There's  no  wrong 
But  she  would  make  it  momentary  right 

By  innocence  in  doing  it 

And  yet, 
What  is  our  certainty?     Why,  knowing  all 
That  is  not  secret.     Mighty  confidence  ! 
One  pulse  of  Time  makes  the  base  hollow — sends 
The  towering  certainty  we  built  so  high 
Toppling  in  fragments  meaningless.     What  is — 
What  will  be — must  be — pooh!  they  weight  the  key 
Of  that  wliicli  is  not  yet;  all  other  keys 
Are  made  of  our  conjectures,  take  their  sense 


THE    SPANISH    GYPSY.  341 

From  humors  fooled  by  liope,  or  by  despair. 
Know  what  is  good?     0  God,  we  know  not  yet 
If  bliss  itself  is  not  young  misery 

With  fangs  swift  growing 

But  some  outward  harm 
May  even  now  be  hurting,  grieving  her. 
Oh!  I  must  search — face  shame — if  shame  be  there. 
Here,  Perez!  hasten  to  Don  Alvar — tell  him 
Lady  Fedalma  must  be  sought-  -is  lost — 
Has  met,  I  fear,  some  mischance.     He  must  send 
Toward  divers  points.     I  go  myself  to  seek 
First  in  the  town 

[As  Perez  oped  the  door. 
Then  moved  aside  for  passage  of  the  Duke, 
Fedalma  entered,  cast  away  the  cloud 
Of  serge  and  linen,  and  out  beaming  bright. 
Advanced  a  pace  toward  Silva — but  then  paused, 
For  he  had  started  and  retreated;  she. 
Quick  and  responsive  as  the  subtle  air 
To  change  in  him,  divined  that  she  must  wait 
Until  they  were  alone:  they  stood  and  looked. 
Within  the  Duke  was  struggling  confluence 
Of  feelings  manifold — pride,  anger,  dread, 
Meeting  in  stonny  rush  with  sense  secure 
That  she  was  present,  with  the  new-stilled  thirst 
Of  gazing  love,  with  trust  inevitable 
As  in  beneficent  virtues  of  the  light 
And  all  earth's  sweetness,  that  Fedalma's  soul 
Was  free  from  blemishing  purpose.     Yet  proud  wrath 
Leaped  in  dark  flood  above  the  purer  stream 
That  strove  to  drown  'it:  Anger  seeks  its  prey — 
Something  to  tear  with  sharp-edged  tooth  and  claw, 
Likes  not  to  go  off  hungry,  leaving  love 
To  feast  on  milk  and  honeycomb  at  will. 
Silva's  heart  said,  he  must  be  happy  soon, 
She  being  there;  but  to  be  happy — first 
He  must  be  angry,  having  cause.     Yet  love 
Shot  like  a  stifled  cry  of  tenderness 
All  through  the  harshness  he  would  fain  have  given 
To  the  dear  word,] 

Don  Silva. 
FedalmaJ 


34:2  the  spanish  gypsy. 

Fedalma. 

0  my  lord! 
You  are  come  back,  and  I  was  wandering! 

Don  Silva  [coldly,  hut  ivith  suppressed  agitation). 
You  meant  I  should  be  ignorant. 

Fedalma. 

Oh,  no, 
I  should  have  told  you  after — not  before. 
Lest  you  should  hinder  me. 

Don  Silva. 

Then  my  known  wish 
Can  make  no  hindrance? 

Fedalma  {arclily). 

That  depends 
On  what  the  wish  may  be.     You  wished  me  once 
Not  to  uncage  the  birds.     I  meant  to  obey: 
But  in  a  moment  something — something  stronger. 
Forced  me  to  let  them  out.     It  did  no  harm. 
They  all  came  back  again — the  silly  birds! 
I  told  you,  after. 

Don  Silva  {with  haughty  coldness). 

Will  you  tell  me  now 
What  was  the  promjating  stronger  than  my  wish 
That  made  you  wander? 

Fedalma  {advancing  a  step  toward  him,  with  a  sudden 

look  of  anxiety). 

Are  you  angry? 

Don  Silva  {smiling  bitterly). 

Angry? 
A  man  deep  wounded  may  feel  too  much  pain 
To  feel  much  anger. 

Fedalma  {still  more  anxiously). 
You — deep-wounded  ? 


the  spanish  gypsy.  343 

Don  Silva. 

YesI 
Have  I  not  made  your  place  and  dignity 
The  very  heart  of  my  ambition?     You — 
No  enemy  could  do  it — you  alone 
Can  strike  it  mortally. 

Fedalma. 

Nay,  Silva,  nay. 
Has  some  one  told  you  false?    I  only  went 
To  see  the  world  with  Inez — see  the  town. 
The  people,  everything.     It  was  no  harm. 
I  did  not  mean  to  dance:  it  happened  so 
At  last 

Don  Silva. 

0  God,  it's  true  then! — true  that  you, 
A  maiden  nurtured  as  rare  lioAvers  are. 
The  very  air  of  heaven  sifted  fine 
Lest  any  mote  should  mar  your  purity, 
Have  flung  yourself  out  on  the  dusty  way 
For  common  eyes  to  see  your  beauty  soiled! 
You  own  it  true — you  danced  upon  the  Pla9a? 

Fedalma  {proudlii). 

Yes,  it  is  true.     I  was  not  wrong  to  dance. 

The  air  was  filled  with  music,  with  a  song 

That  seemed  the  voice  of  the  sweet  eventide — 

The  glowing  light  entering  through  eye  and  ear — 

Tliat  seemed  our  love — mine,  yours — they  are  but  one — 

Tremblmg  tlirough  all  my  limbs,  as  fervent  words 

Tremble  within  my  soul  and  must  be  spoken. 

And  all  the  people  felt  a  common  joy 

And  shouted  for  the  dance.     A  brightness  soft 

As  of  tlie  angels  moving  down  to  see 

Illumined  the  broad  space.     The  joy,  the  life 

Around,  within  me,  were  one  heaven:  I  longed 

To  blend  them  visilaly:  I  longed  to  dance 

Before  the  people — be  as  mounting  flame 

To  all  that  burned  within  them!     Nay,  I  danced; 

There  was  no  longing:  I  but  did  the  deed 

Being  moved  to  do  it. 


344  THE    SPANISH    GYPSY. 

{As  Fedalma  speaks,  she  and  Don"  Silva  are  gradually 
drawn  nearer  to  each  other.) 

Oh!  I  seemed  new-waked 
To  life  in  unison  with  a  multitude — 
Feeling  my  soul  upborne  by  all  their  souls. 
Floating  within  their  gladness !     Soon  I  lost 
All  sense  of  separateness:  Fedalma  died 
As  a  star  dies,  and  melts  into  the  light. 
I  was  not,  but  joy  was,  and  love  and  triumph. 
Nay,  my  dear  lord,  I  never  could  do  aught 
But  I  must  feel  you  present.     And  once  done. 
Why,  you  must  love  it  better  than  your  wish. 
I  pray  you,  say  so — say,  it  was  not  wrong! 

(  While  Fedalma  has  been  mahing  this  last  appeal,  they  have 
gradually  come  close  together,  and  at  last  embrace. ) 

Don  Silva  {liolding  her  hands). 

Dangerous  rebel!  if  the  world  without 

Were  pure  as  that  within but  ^tis  a  book 

Wherein  you  only  read  the  poesy 
And  miss  all  wicked  meanings.     Hence  the  need 
For  trust — obedience — call  it  what  you  will — 
Toward  him  whose  life  will  be  your  guard — toward  me 
Who  now  am  soon  to  be  your  husband. 

Fedalma. 

Yes! 
That  very  thing  that  when  I  am  your  wife 
I  shall  be  something  different, — shall  be 
I  know  not  what,  a  Duchess  \/ith  new  thoughts — 
For  nobles  never  think  like  common  men, 
Nor  wives  like  maidens  (Oh,  you  wot  not  yet 
How  much  I  note,  with  all  my  ignorance) — 
Tliat  very  thing  has  made  me  more  resolve 
To  have  my  will  before  I  am  your  wife. 
How  can  the  Duchess  ever  satisfy 
Fedalma's  unwed  eyes?  and  so  to-day 
I  scolded  Inez  till  she  cried  and  went. 

Don"  Silva. 

It  was  a  guilty  weakness:  she  knows  well 
That  since  you  pleaded  to  be  left  more  free 


THE    SPANISH    GYPSY.  345 

From  tedious  tendance  and  control  of  dames 
Whose  rank  matched  Letter  with  your  destiny. 
Her  charge — my  trust — was  weightier. 

Fedalma. 

Nay,  my  lord. 
You  must  not  blame  her,  dear  old  nurse.     She  cried. 
Why,  you  v/ould  have  consented  too,  at  last. 
I  said  such  things!     I  was  resolved  to  go, 
And  see  the  streets,  the  shops,  the  men  at  work. 
The  women,  little  children — everything. 
Just  as  it  is  when  nobody  looks  on. 
And  I, have  done  it!     We  were  out  for  hours. 
I  feel  so  wise. 

Don  Silva. 

Had  you  but  seen  the  town. 
You  innocent  naughtiness,  not  shown  yourself — 
Shown  yourself  dancing — you  bewilder  me! — 
Frustrate  my  judgment  with  strange  negatives 
That  seem  like  poverty,  and  yet  are  wealth 
In  precious  womanliness,  beyond  the  dower 
Of  other  women:  wealth  in  virgin  gold. 
Outweighing  all  their  petty  currency. 
You  daring  modesty!     You  shrink  no  more 
From  gazing  men  than  from  the  gazing  flowers 
That,  dreaming  sunshine,  open  as  you  pass. 

Fedalma. 

No,  I  should  like  the  world  to  look  at  me 

With  eyes  of  love  that  make  a  second  day. 

I  think  your  eyes  would  keep  tlie  life  in  me 

Though!  liad  naught  to  feed  on  else.     Their  blue 

Is  better  than  tlie  heavens' — holds  more  love 

For  me,  Fedalma — is  a  little  heaven 

For  tliis  one  little  world  that  looks  up  now. 

Don  Silva. 

0  precious  little  world!  you  make  the  heaven 
As  the  earth  makes  the  sky.     But,  dear,  all  eyes, 
Tliough  looking  even  on  you,  have  not  a  glance 
That  cherishes 


346  THE   SPANISH   GYPSY. 


Fedalma. 


Ah  no,  I  meant  to  tell  you — 
Tell  how  my  dancing  ended  with  a  pang. 
There  came  a  man,  one  among  many  more. 
But  he  came  first,  with  iron  on  his  limbs. 
And  when  the  bell  tolled,  and  the  people  prayed, 
And  I  stood  pausing — then  he  looked  at  me. 

0  Silva,  such  a  man!     I  thought  he  rose 
From  the  dark  place  of  long-imprisoned  souls. 
To  say  that  Christ  had  never  come  to  them. 

It  was  a  look  to  shame  a  seraph's  joy. 

And  make  him  sad  in  heaven.     It  found  me  there — 

Seemed  to  have  traveled  far  to  find  me  there 

And  grasp  me — claim  this  festal  life  of  mine 

As  heritage  of  sorrow,  chill  my  blood 

With  the  cold  iron  of  some  unknown  bonds. 

The  gladness  hurrying  full  within  my  veins 

Was  sudden  frozen,  and  I  danced  no  more. 

But  seeing  you  let  loose  the  stream  of  joy, 

Mingling  the  present  with  the  sweetest  past. 

Yet,  Silva,  still  I  see  him.     Who  is  he? 

Who  are  those  prisoners  with  him?     Are  they  Moors; 

Don  Silva. 

No,  they  are  Gypsies,  strong  and  cunning  knaves, 
A  double  gain  to  us  by  the  Moors'  loss: 
The  man  you  mean — their  chief — is  an  ally 
The  infidel  will  miss.     His  look  might  chase 
A  herd  of  monks,  and  make  them  fly  more  swift 
Than  from  Saint  Jerome's  lion.     Such  vague  fear. 
Such  bird-like  tremors  when  that  savage  glance 
Turned  full  upon  you  in  your  height  of  joy 
Was  natural,  was  not  worth  emphasis. 
Forget  it,  dear.     This  hour  is  worth  whole  days 
When  we  are  sundered.     Danger  urges  us 
To  quick  resolve, 

Fedalma. 

What  danger?  what  resolve? 

1  never  felt  chill  shadow  in  my  heart 
Until  this  sunset. 

Don  Silva. 

A  dark  enmity 
Plots  how  to  sever  us.     And  our  defense 


THE    SPANISH    GYPSY.  341 

Is  speedy  marriage,  secretly  achieved. 
Then  publicly  declared.     Beseech  you,  dear. 
Grant  me  this  confidence;  do  my  will  in  this. 
Trusting  the  reasons  why  I  overset 
All  my  own  airy  building  raised  so  high 
Of  bridal  honors,  marking  when  you  step 
From  off  youi-  maiden  throne  to  come  to  me 
And  bear  the  yoke  of  love.     There  is  great  need. 
I  hastened  home,  carrying  this  j^rayer  to  you 
Within  my  heart.     The  bishop  is  my  friend. 
Furthers  our  marriage,  holds  in  enmity — 
Some  whom  we  love  not  and  who  love  not  us. 
By  this  night's  moon  our  priest  will  be  dispatched  , 
From  Jaen.     I  shall  march  an  escort  strong 
To  meet  him.     Ere  a  second  sun  from  this 
Has  risen — you  consenting — we  may  wed. 

Fedalma. 
None  knowing  that  we  wed? 

Don  Silva. 

Beforehand  none 
Save  Inez  and  Don  Alvar.     But  the  vows 
Once  safely  binding  us,  my  household  all 
Shall  know  you  as  their  Duchess.     No  man  then 
Can  aim  a  blow  at  you  but  through  my  breast, 
And  what  stains  you  must  stain  our  ancient  name; 
If  any  hate  you  I  will  take  his  hate. 
And  wear  it  as  a  glove  upon  my  helm; 
Nay,  God  himself  will  never  have  the  power 
To  strike  you  solely  and  leave  me  unhurt. 
He  having  made  us  one.     Now  put  the  seal 
Of  your  dear  lips  on  that. 

Fedalma. 

A  solemn  kiss? — 
Such  as  I  gave  you  when  you  came  that  day 
From  Cordova,  when  first  we  said  we  loved? 
When  you  had  left  the  ladies  of  the  Court 
For  thirst  to  see  me;  and  you  told  me  so, 
And  then  I  seemed  to  knov/  why  I  had  lived. 
I  never  knew  before.     A  kiss  like  that? 


348  the  spanish  gypsy. 

Don  Silva. 

Yes,  yes,  you  face  divine!     When  was  our  kiss 
Like  any  other? 

Pedalma. 

Nay,  I  cannot  tell 
What  other  kisses  are.     But  that  one  kiss 
Eemains  upon  my  lips.     The  angels,  spirits. 
Creatures  with  finer  sense,  may  see  it  there. 
And  now  another  kiss  that  will  not  die. 
Saying,  To-morrow  I  shall  be  your  wife! 

{They  kiss,  and  pause  a  moment,  loohmg  earnestly  in  each 
other's  eyes.  Then  Fedalma,  breaking  aioay  from  Don 
Silva,  stands  at  a  little  distance  from  him  with  a  look 
of  roguish  delight.) 

Now  I  am  glad  I  saw  the  town  to-day 
Before  I  am  a  Duchess — glad  I  gave 
This  poor  Fedalma  all  her  wish.     For  once. 
Long  years  ago,  I  cried  when  Inez  said, 
"  You  are  no  more  a  little  girl ";  I  grieved 
To  part  forever  from  that  little  girl 
And  all  her  hapjiy  world  so  near  the  ground. 
It  must  be  sad  to  outlive  aught  we  love. 
So  I  shall  grieve  a  little  for  these  days 
Of  poor  unwed  Fedalma.     Oh,  they  are  sweet. 
And  none  will  come  just  like  them.    Perhaj)s  the  wind 
Wails  so  in  winter  for  the  summer^s  dead. 
And  all  sad  sounds  are  nature^s  funeral  cries 
For  what  has  been  and  is  not.     Are  they,  Silva? 

(She  com.es  nearer  to  Mm  again,  and  lays  her  hand  o?i  his 
arm,  looking  uj)  dt  him  ivith  melancholy.) 

Don  Silva. 

Why,  dearest,  you  began  in  merriment. 
And  end  as  sadly  as  a  widowed  bird. 
Some  touch  mysterious  has  new-tuned  your  soul 
To  melancholy  sequence.     You  soared  high 
In  that  wild  flight  of  rapture  when  3^ou  danced, 
And  now  yon  droop.     'Tis  arbitrary  grief. 
Surfeit  of  happiness,  that  mourns  for  loss 
Of  unwed  love,  which  does  but  die  like  seed 


THE   SPAKISH   GYPSY.  349 

For  fuller  harvest  of  our  tenderness. 

We  in  our  wedded  life  shall  know  no  loss. 

We  shall  new-date  our  years      What  went  before 

Will  be  the  time  of  promise,  shadows,  dreams; 

But  this,  full  revelation  of  great  love. 

For  rivers  blent  take  in  a  broader  heaven, 

And  we  shall  blend  our  souls.     Away  with  grief! 

When  this  dear  head* shall  wear  the  double  crown 

Of  wife  and  duchess — spiritually  crowned 

With  sworn  espousal  before  God  and  man — 

Visibly  crowned  with  jewels  that  bespeak 

The  chosen  sharer  of  my  heritage — 

My  love  will  gather  perfectness,  as  thoughts 

That  nourish  us  to  magnanimity 

Grow  perfect  with  more  perfect  utterance. 

Gathering  full-shapen  strength.  And  then  these  gems, 

(DoK  SiLVA  draws  Fedalma  toward  the  jeivel-casket  on 
the  table,  and  opens  it.) 

Helping  the  utterance  of  my  soul's  full  choice. 
Will  be  the  words  made  richer  by  just  use. 
And  have  new  meaning  in  their  lustrousness. 
You  know  these  jewels;  they  are  precious  signs 
Of  long-transmitted  honor,  heightened  still 
By  worthy  wearing;  and  I  give  tbem  you — 
Ask  you  to  take  them — place  our  house's  trust 
In  her  sure  keeping  whom  my  heart  has  found 
Worthiest,  most  beauteous.     These  rubies — see — 
Were  falsely  placed  if  not  upon  your  brow. 

(Fedalma,  while  Don  Silva  holds  open  the  casket,  lends 
over  it,  looking  at  the  jewels  with  delight.) 

Fedalma. 

Ah,  I  remember  them.     In  childish  days 
I  felt  as  if  they  were  alive  and  breathed. 
I  used  to  sit  with  awe  ami  look  at  them. 
And  now  tliey  will  be  mine!     I'll  put  them  on. 
Help  me,  my  lord,  and  you  sliall  see  me  now 
Somewhat  as  I  shall  look  at  Court  with  you. 
That  we  may  know  if  I  shall  bear  them  well. 
I  have  a  fear  sometimes:  I  think  your  love 
Has  never  paused  within  your  eyes  to  look. 


350  THE  SPANISH   GYPSY. 

And  only  passes  through  them  into  mine. 
But  when  the  Court  is  looking,  and  the  queen. 
Your  eyes  will  follow  theirs.     Oh,  if  you  saw 
That  I  was  other  than  you  wislied — 'twere  death! 

Don"  Silva  {taking  up  a  jewel  and  'placing  it  against  her 

ear). 

JSTay,  let  us  try.     Take  ont  your  ear-ring,  sweet. 
This  ruby  glows  with  longing  for  your  ear. 

Fedalma  {talcing  out  her  ear-rings,  and  then  Ufti^ig  up 
the  other  jewels,  one  by  one. 

Pray,  fasten  in  the  rubies. 

(Don  Silva  begins  to  put  in  the  ear-ring.) 

I  was  right! 
These  gems  have  life  in  them:  their  colors  speak. 
Say  what  words  fail  of.     So  do  many  things — 
The  scent  of  jasmine,  and  the  fountain's  plash. 
The  moving  shadows  on  the  far-off  hills. 
The  slanting  moonlight,  and  our  clasping  hands. 
0  Silva,  there's  an  ocean  round  our  words 
That  overflows  and  drowns  them.     Do  you  know 
Sometimes  when  we  sit  silent,  and  the  air 
Breathes  gently  on  us  from  the  orange  trees. 
It  seems  that  with  the  whisper  of  a  word 
Our  souls  must  shrink,  get  poorer,  more  apart. 
Is  it  not  true? 

Don  Silva. 

Yes,  dearest,  it  is  true. 
Speech  is  but  broken  light  upon  the  depth 
Of  the  unspoken:  even  your  loved  words 
Float  in  the  larger  meaning  of  your  voice 
As  something  dimmer. 


"O 


{He  is  still  trying  in  vain  to  fasten  the  second  ear-ring, 
while  she  has  stooped  again  over  the  casket.) 

Fedalma  {raising  her  head). 

Ah!  your  lordly  hands 
Will  never  fix  that  jewel.     Let  me  try. 
Women's  small  finger-tips  have  eyes. 


the  spanish  gypsy.  351 

Don  Silva. 

No,  no! 
I  like  the  task,  only  you  must  be  still. 

{She  stands  perfectly  still,  clasping  her  hands  together  while 
he  fastens  the  second  ear-ring.  Suddenly  a  clanking 
noise  is  heard  withoict.) 

Fed  ALMA  {starting  with  an  expression  of  pain). 

What  is  that  sound? — that  jarring  cruel  sound? 
'Tis  there — outside. 

{She  tries  to  start  away  toivard  the  window,   but  Don 
Silva  detains  her.) 

Don  Silva. 

0  heed  it  not,  it  comes 
From  workmen  in  the  outer  gallery. 

Fedalma. 

It  is  the  sound  of  fetters;  sound  of  work 

Is  not  so  dismal.     Hark,  they  j)ass  along! 

I  know  it  is  those  Gypsy  prisoners. 

I  saw  them,  heard  their  chains.     0  horrible. 

To  be  in  chains!    Why,  I  with  all  my  bliss 

Have  longed  sometimes  to  fly  and  be  at  large; 

Have  felt  imprisoned  in  my  luxury 

With  servants  for  my  gaolers.     0  my  lord. 

Do  you  not  wish  the  world  were  different? 

Don  Silva. 

It  will  be  different  when  this  war  has  ceased. 
You,  wedding  me,  will  make  it  different. 
Making  one  life  more  perfect. 

Fedalma. 

That  is  true! 
And  I  shall  beg  much  kindness  at  your  hands 
For  those  who  are  less  happy  than  ourselves. — 
(Brightening)  Oh  I  shall  rnle  you!  ask  for  many  things 
Before  the  world,  wliicli  you  will  not  deny 
For  very  pride,  lest  men  sliould  say.  ''The  Duke 
Holds  lightly  by  his  Duchess;  he  repents 
His  humble  choice. 


353  THE   SPANISH   GYPSY. 

"  {She  hrealcs  away  from  Mm  and  returns  to  titer  jewels, 
talcing  up  a  necklace,  and  clasiying  it  on  her  nech,  ivhile 
he  takes  a  circlet  of  dia7no7ids  and  rubies  and  raises  it 
toward  her  head  as  he  speaks.) 

Don  Silva. 

Doubtless^  I  shall  persist 
In  loving  you,  to  disappoint  the  world; 
Out  of  pure  obstinacy  feel  myself 
Happiest  of  men.     Now,  take  the  coronet. 

{He places  the  circlet  on  her  head.) 

The  diamonds  want  more  light.     See,  from  this  lamj 
I  can  set  tapers  burning. 

Fedalma. 

Tell  me,  now. 
When  all  these  cruel  wars  are  at  an  end. 
And  when  we  go  to  Court  at  Cordova, 
Or  Seville,  or  Toledo — wait  awhile, 
I  must  be  farther  off  for  you  to  see — 

{She  retreats  to  a  distance  from  him,  and  then  advances 

slowly. ) 

Now  think  (I  would  the  tapers  gave  more  light!) 
If  when  you  show  me  at  the  tournaments 
Among  the  other  ladies,  they  Avill  say, 
"  Duke  Silva  is  well  matched.     His  bride  was  naught. 
Was  some  poor  foster-child,  no  man  knows  what; 
Yet  is  her  carriage  noble,  all  her  robes 
Are  worn  with  grace:  she  might  have  been  well  born." 
Will  they  say  so?    Think  now  we  are  at  Court, 
And  all  eyes  bent  on  me. 

Don  Silva. 

Fear  not,  my  Duchess! 
Some  knight  who  loves  may  say  his  lady-love 
Is  fairer,  being  fairest.     None  can  say 
Don  Silva^s  bride  miglit  better  fit  her  rank. 
You  will  make  rank  seem  natural  as  kind. 
As  eagle's  plumage  or  the  lion's  might. 
A  crown  upon  your  brow  would  seem  God-made. 


the  spanish  gypsy.  353 

Fedalma. 

Then  I  am  glad!    I  shall  try  on  to-night 
The  other  jewels — have  the  tapers  lit. 
And  see  the  diamonds  sparkle. 

{She  goes  to  the  casket  again.) 

Here  is  gold — 
A  necklace  of  pure  gold — most  finely  wrought. 

{8he  takes  out  a  large  gold  necklace  and  holds  it  up  hefore 
her,  then  turns  to  Don  Silva.) 

But  this  is  one  that  you  have  worn,  my  lord.'' 

Don  Silva. 
No,  love,  I  never  wore  it.     Lay  it  down. 

{He  puts  the  necklace  gently  out  of  her  hand,  then  joins 
both  her  hands  arid  holds  them  up  between  his  oivn.) 

You  must  not  look  at  jewels  any  more. 
But  look  at  me. 

Fedalma  {looking  up  at  him). 

0  you  dear  heaven! 
I  should  see  naught  if  you  were  gone.     'Tis  true 
My  mind  is  too  much  given  to  gauds — to  things 
That  fetter  thought  "within  this  narrow  space. 
That  comes  of  fear. 

Don  Silya. 
What  fear? 

Fedalma. 

Fear  of  myself. 
For  when  T  Avalk  upon  the  battlements 
And  see  the  river  traveling  toward  the  plain, 
The  mountains  screening  all  the  world  beyond, 
A  longing  comes  that  haunts  me  in  my  dreams — 
Dreams  where  I  seem  to  spring  from  off  the  walls, 
And  fly  far,  far  away,  until  at  last 
I  find  myself  alone  among  the  rocks, 


354  THE   SPANISH    GYPSY. 

Eemember  then  that  I  have  left  you — try 

To  fly  back  to  you — and  my  wings  are  gone!  ^ 

Don  Silva.  , 

I 
A  wicked  dream!     If  ever  I  left  you, 

Even  in  dreams,  it  was  some  demon  dragged  me. 

And  with  fierce  struggles  I  awaked  myself. 

Fedalma. 

It  is  a  hateful  dream,  and  when  it  comes — 

I  mean,  when  in  my  waking  hours  there  comes 

That  longing  to  be  free,  1  am  afraid: 

I  run  down  to  my  chamber,  plait  my  hair, 

Weave  colors  in  it,  lay  out  all  my  gauds, 

And  in  my  mind  make  new  ones  prettier. 

You  see  I  have  two  minds,  and  both  are  foolish. 

Sometimes  a  torrent  rushing  through  my  soul 

Escapes  in  wild  strange  wishes;  presently. 

It  dwindles  to  a  little  babbling  rill 

And  plays  among  the  pebbles  and  the  flowers. 

Inez  will  have  it  I  lack  broidery, 

Says  naught  else  gives  content  to  noble  maids. 

But  I  have  never  broidered — never  will. 

No,  when  I  am  a  Duchess  and  a  wife 

I  shall  ride  forth — may  I  not? — by  your  side. 

Don  Silva. 

Yes,  you  shall  ride  upon  a  palfrey,  black 
To  match  Bavieca.     Not  Queen  Isabel 
Will  be  a  sight  more  gladdening  to  men's  eyes 
Than  my  dark  queen  Fedalma. 

Fedalma. 

Ah,  but  you, 
You  are  my  king,  and  I  shall  tremble  still 
With  some  great  fear  that  throbs  within  my  love. 
Does  your  love  fear? 

Don  Silva. 

Ah,  yes!  all  preciousness 
To  mortal  hearts  is  guarded  by  a  fear. 
All  love  fears  loss,  and  most  that  loss  supreme. 
Its  own  perfection — seeing,  feeling  change 


THE   SPANISH   GYPSY.  355 

From  high  to  lower,  dearer  to  less  dear. 

Can  love  be  careless?    If  we  lost  our  love 

What  sliould  we  find? — with  this  sweet  Past  torn  off. 

Our  lives  deep  scarred  just  where  their  beauty  lay? 

The  best  we  found  thenceforth  were  still  a  worse: 

The  only  better  is  a  Past  that  lives 

On  through  an  added  Present,  stretching  still 

In  hope  unchecked  by  shaming  memories 

To  life's  last  breath.     And  so  I  tremble  too 

Before  my  queen  Fedalma. 

Fedalma. 

That  is  just. 
'Twere  hard  of  Love  to  make  us  women  fear 
And  leave  you  bold.     Yet  Love  is  not  quite  even. 
For  feeble  creatures,  little  birds  and  fawns, 
Are  shaken  more  by  fear,  Avhile  large  stroug  things 
Can  bear  it  stoutly.     So  we  women  still 
Are  not  well  dealt  with.     Yet  I'd  choose  to  be 
Fedalma  loving  Silva.     You,  my  lord, 
Hold  the  worse  share,  since  you  must  love  poor  me. 
But  is  it  what  we  love,  or  how  we  love. 
That  makes  true  good? 


to"- 


Don  Silva. 

0  subtlety!  for  me 
'Tis  what  I  love  determines  how  I  love. 
The  goddess  with  pure  rites  reveals  herself 
And  makes  pure  worship. 

Fedalma. 

Do  you  worship  me? 

Don  Silva. 

Ay,  with  that  best  of  worship  which  adores 
Goodness  adorable. 

Fedalma  {arddy). 

Goodness  obedient. 
Doing  your  will,  devoutest  worshiper? 


356  the  spanish  gypsy. 

Don  Silva. 

Yes — listening  to  tliis  praj^er.     This  very  night 
I  shall  go  forth.     And  you  will  rise  with  day 
And  wait  for  me? 

Fedalma. 

Yes. 

Don  Silva. 

I  shall  surely  come. 
And  then  we  shall  be  married.     Now  I  go 
To  audience  fixed  in  Abderahman's  tower. 
Farewell,  love! 

{They  emirace.) 

Fedalma. 
Some  chill  dread  possesses  me! 

Don  Silva 

Oh,  confidence  has  oft  been  evil  augury, 

So  dread  may  hold  a  promise.     Sweet,  farewell! 

I  shall  send  tendance  as  I  pass,  to  bear 

This  casket  to  your  chamber. — One  more  kiss. 

(Uxit.) 

Fedalma  {when  Don  Silva  is  gone,  returning  to  the  cas- 
ket, and  looking  dreamily  at  the  jewels). 

Yes,  now  that  good  seems  less  impossible! 
Now  it  seems  true  that  I  shall  be  his  wife. 
Be  ever  by  his  side,  and  make  a  part 

In  all  his  purposes 

These  rubies  greet  me  Duchess.     How  they  glow! 

Their  prisoned  souls  are  throbbing  like  my  own. 

Perchance  tliey  loved  once,  were  ambitious,  proud; 

Or  do  they  only  dream  of  wider  life, 

Ache  from  intenseness,  yearn  to  burst  the  wall 

Compact  of  crystal  splendor,  and  to  flood 

Some  wider  space  with  glory?     Poor,  poor  gems! 

We  must  1)6  patient  in  our  prison-house. 

And  find  our  space  in  loving.     Pray  you,  love  me. 

Let  us  be  glad  together.     And  you,  gold — 


THE    SPANISH    GYPSY.  357 

{She  takes  up  the  gold  necklace.) 

You  wondrous  necklace — will  you  love  me  too. 
And  be  my  amulet  to  keep  me  safe 
From  eyes  that  hurt? 

{She  spreads  out  the  necklace,  meaning  to  clasp  it  on  her 
neck.    Then  pauses,  startled,  holding  it  before  her.) 

Why,  it  is  magical! 
He  says  he  never  wore  it — yet  these  lines — 
Nay,  if  he  had,  I  should  remember  well 
'Twas  he,  no  other      And  these  twisted  lines — 
They  seem  to  speak  to  me  as  writing  would, 
To  bring  a  message  from  the  dead,  dead  past. 
What  is  their  secret?     Are  they  characters? 
I  never  learned  them;  yet  they  stir  some  sense 
That  once  I  dreamed — I  have  forgotten  what. 
Or  was  it  life?     Perhaps  I  lived  before 
In  some  strange  world  where  first  my  soul  was  shaped, 
And  all  this  passionate  love,  and  joy,  and  pain, 
That  come,  I  know  not  whence,  and  sway  my  deeds,   v 
Are  old  imperious  memories,  blind  yet  strong. 
That  this  world  stirs  within  me;  as  this  chain 
Stirs  some  strange  certainty  of  visions  gone, 
And  all  my  mind  is  as  an  eye  that  stares 
Into  the  darkness  painfully. 

( While  Fedalma  has  heen  looking  at  the  necklace,  Juan 
has  entered,  and  finding  himself  unobserved  by  her,  says 
at  last.) 

Seflora! 

(Fedalma  starts,  atid  gathering  the  necklace  together  turns 

round. ) 

Oh,  Juan,  it  is  yon! 

Juan. 

I  met  the  Duke — 
Had  Avaited  long  without,  no  matter  why — 
And  when  he  ordered  one  to  wait  on  you 
And  carry  forth  a  burden  you  would  give, 
I  prayed  for  leave  to  be  the  servitor. 
Don  "Silva  owes  rae  twenty  granted  wishes 


358  THE   SPANISH   GYPSY. 

That  I  liave  never  tendered,  lacking  anght 
That  I  could  wish  for  and  a  Duke  could  grant; 
But  this  one  wish  to  serve  you,  weighs  as  much 
As  twenty  other  longings. 

Fed  ALMA  {smiling). 

That  sounds  well. 
You  turn  your  speeches  prettily  as  songs. 
But  I  will  not  forget  the  many  days 
You  have  neglected  me.     Your  pupil  learns 
But  little  from  you  now.     Her  studies  flag. 
The  Duke  says,  "  That  is  idle  Juan's  way: 
Poets  must  rove — are  honey-sucking  birds 
And  know  not  constancy."     Said  he  quite  true? 

Juan. 

0  lady,  constancy  has  kind  and  rank. 
One  man's  is  lordly,  plump,  and  bravely  clad, 
Holds  its  head  high,  and  tells  the  world  its  name: 
Another  man's  is  beggared,  must  go  bare, 
*        And  shiver  through  the  world,  the  jest  of  all. 
But  that  it  puts  the  motley  on,  and  jDlays 
Itself  the  jester.     But  I  see  you  hold 
The  Gypsy's  necklace:  it  is  quaintly  wrought. 

Fedalma. 
The  Gypsy's?    Do  you  know  its  history? 

Juan. 

No  farther  back  than  when  I  saw  it  taken 
From  off  its  wearer's  neck — the  Gypsy  chief's. 

Fedalma  {eagerly). 

What!  he  who  paused,  at  tolling  of  the  bellj 
Before  me  in  the  Pla9a? 

Juan. 

Yes,  I  saw 
His  look  fixed  on  you. 

Fedalma. 

Know  you  aught  of  him? 


THE   SPANISH    GYPST,  359 


Juan. 


Something  and  nothing — as  I  know  the  sky, 

Or  some  great  story  of  the  olden  time 

That  hides  a  secret.     I  have  oft  talked  with  him. 

He  seems  to  say  much,  yet  is  but  a  wizard 

Who  draws  down  rain  by  sprinkling;  throws  me  out 

Some  pregnant  text  that  urges  comment;  casts 

A  sharp-hooked  question,  baited  with  such  skill 

It  needs  must  catch  the  answer. 

Fedalma. 

It  is  hard 
That  such  a  man  should  be  a  prisoner — 
Be  chained  to  work. 

Juan. 

Oh,  he  is  dangerous! 
Granada  with  this  Zarca  for  a  king 
Might  still  maim  Christendom.     He  is  of  those 
Who  steal  the  keys  from  snoring  Destiny 
And  make  the  prophets  lie.     A  Gypsy,  too. 
Suckled  by  hunted  beasts,  whose  mother-milk 
Has  filled  his  veins  with  hate. 

Fedalma. 

I  thought  his  eyes 
Spoke  not  of  hatred — seemed  to  say  he  bore 
The  pain  of  those  who  never  could  be  saved. 
What  if  the  Gypsies  are  but  savage  beasts, 
And  must  be  hunted? — let  tlicm  be  set  free. 
Have  benefit  of  chase,  or  stand  at  bay 
And  fight  for  life  and  offspring.     Prisoners! 
Oh!  they  have  made  their  fires  beside  the  streams, 
Their  walls  liave  been  the  rocks,  the  pillared  pines, 
Their  roof  the  living  sky  that  breathes  witli  light: 
They  may  well  liate  a  cage,  like  strong-winged  birds. 
Like  me,  who  have  no  wings,  but  only  wishes. 
I  will  beseech  the  Duke  to  set  them  free. 

Juan. 

Pardon  me,  lady,  if  I  seem  to  warn, 

Or  try  to  play  the  sage.     AYhat  if  the  Duke 

Loved  not  to  hear  of  Gypsies?  if  their  name 


360  THE   SPANISH    GYPSY. 

Were  poisoned  for  him  once,  being  used  amiss? 
I  speak  not  as  of  fact.     Our  nimble  souls 
Can  spin  an  insubstantial  universe 
Suiting  our  mood;,  and  call  it  possible, 
Sooner  than  see  one  grain  with  eye  exact 
And  give  strict  record  of  it.     Yet  by  chance 
Our  fancies  may  be  truth  and  make  us  seers. 
'Tis  a  rare  teeming  world,  so  harvest-full. 
Even  guessing  ignorance  may  pluck  some  fruit. 
Note  what  I  say  no  farther  than  will  stead 
The  siege  you  lay.     I  would  not  seem  to  tell 
Aught  that  the  Duke  may  think  and  yet  withhold: 
It  were  a  trespass  in  me. 

Fedalma. 

Fear  not,  Juan. 
Your  words  bring  daylight  with  them  when  you  speak. 
I  understand  your  care.     But  I  am  brave — 
Oh!  and  so  cunning! — always  I  prevail. 
Now,  honored  Troubadour,  if  you  will  be 
Your  pupil's  servant,  bear  this  casket  hence. 
Nay,  not  the  necklace:  it  is  hard  to  place. 
Pray  go  before  me;  Inez  will  be  there. 

{Exit  Juan  with  thecashet.) 

Fedalma  {looking  again  at  the  necklace). 

It  is  his  past  clings  to  you,  not  my  own. 

If  we  have  each  our  angels,  good  and  bad. 

Fates,  separate  from  ourselves,  who  act  for  us 

When  we  are  blind,  or  sleep,  then  this  man's  fate. 

Hovering  about  the  thing  he  used  to  wear. 

Has  laid  its  grasp  on  mine  appealingly. 

Dangerous,  is  he? — well,  a  Spanish  knight 

Would  have  his  enemy  strong — defy,  not  bind  him. 

I  can  dare  all  things  when  my  soul  is  moved 

By  something  hidden  that  possesses  me. 

If  Silva  said  this  man  must  keep  his  chains 

I  should  find  ways  to  free  him — disobey 

And  free  him  as  I  did  the  birds.     But  no! 

As  soon  as  we  are  wed,  I'll  put  my  prayer. 

And  he  will  not  deny  me:  he  is  good. 

Oh,  I  shall  have  much  power  as  well  as  joy! 

Duchess  Fedalma  may  do  what  she  will. 


I 


THE    SPANISH   GYPSY.  301 

A  Street  by  the  Castle.  Juan  leans  against  a  ])arapei,  in 
moonlight,  and  touches  his  lute  half  unconsciouslg. 
Pepita  stands  on  tijjtoe  watching  him,  and  then  ad- 
vances till  her  shadow  falls  in  front  of  Mm.  He  looks 
toioard  her.  A  piece  of  white  drapery  thrown  over  her 
head  catches  the  moonlight. 

Juan. 

Ha!   my  Pepita!   see  how  thin  and  long 
Your  shadow  is.     ^Tis  so  your  ghost  will  be. 
When  you  are  dead. 

Pepita  {crossing  herself). 

Dead! — 0  the  blessed  saints! 
You  would  be  glad,  then,  if  Pepita  died? 

Juan. 

Glad!  why?    Dead  maidens  are  not  merry.     Ghosts 
Are  doleful  company.     I  like  you  living. 

Pepita. 

I  think  you  like  me  not.     I  wish  you  did. 
Sometimes  you  sing  to  me  and  make  me  dance. 
Another  time  you  take  no  heed  of  me, 
Not  though  I  kiss  my  hand  to  you  and  smile. 
But  Andres  would  be  glad  if  I  kissed  him. 

Juan. 
My  poor  Pepita,  I  am  old. 

Pepita. 

No,  no. 

You  have  no  wrinkles. 

Juan. 

Yes,  I  have — within; 
The  wrinkles  are  within,  my  little  bird. 
Wliy,  I  have  lived  through  twice  a  thousand  years, 
And  kept  the  company  of  men  wliose  bones 
Crumbled  before  the  blessed  Virgin  lived. 


362  THE   SPANISH   GYPSY. 

Pepita  {crossing  herself). 

Nay,  God  defend  us,  that  is  wicked  talk! 

You  say  it  but  to  scorn  me.    ( With  a  sob)  I  will  go. 

Juan. 

Stay,  little  pigeon,  I  am  not  unkind. 

Come,  sit  upon  the  wall.     Nay,  never  cry. 

Give  me  your  cheek  to  kiss.     There,  cry  no  more! 

(Pepita,  sitting  on  the  low  parapet,  puts  up  her  cheek  to 
Juan,  who  hisses  it,  putting  his  hand  under  her  chin. 
She  takes  his  hand  and  kisses  it. ) 

Pepita. 

I  like  to  kiss  your  hand.     It  is  so  good — 
So  smooth  and  soft. 

Juan. 
Well,  well,  I'll  sing  to  you. 

Pepita. 
A  pretty  song,  loving  and  merry? 

Juan. 

Yes. 

Juan  (sings). 

Memory, 
Tell  to  me 
What  is  fair, 
Past  compare. 
In  the  land  of  Tubal  ? 

Is  it  Spi'ing's 
Lovely  things, 
Blossoms  white. 
Rosy  dightf 

Then  it  is  Pepita. 

Summer's  crest 
Red-gold  tressed, 


THE   srANISII   GYPSY.  363 

Corn-floioers  peeping  under  ! — 
Idle  noons, 
Lingering  moons, 
Sudden  cloud, 
Lightning's  shroud. 
Sudden  rain, 
Quich  again 

Smiles  'where  late  was  thunder  9 — 
Are  all  these 
Made  to  j^lease  9 

So  too  is  Peptita. 

Autumn'' s  prime, 
Ap2)le-time, 
Smooth  cheek  round. 
Heart  all  sound  9 — 
Is  it  this 
You  loould  kiss  9 
Then  it  is  Pepita. 

You,  can  bring 
No  siueet  thing, 
But  my  mind 
Still  shall  find 
It  is  my  Pepita. 

Memory 
Says  to  me 
It  is  she — 
She  is  fair 
Past  co7npare 

In  the  land  of  Tubal. 

Pepita  {seizing  Juan's  hand  again). 
Oh,  then,  you  do  love  me? 

Juan. 

Yes,  in  the  song. 

Pepita  (sadly). 
Not  out  of  it?— not  love  me  out  of  it? 


364  the  spanish  gypsy. 

Juan. 

Only  a  little  out  of  it  my  bird. 

When  I  was  singing  1  was  Andres,  say. 

Or  one  who  loves  you  better  still  than  he. 


Not  yourself? 


Pepita. 

Juan. 
No! 


Pepita  {throwing  his  hand  doiun  pettishly). 

Then  take  it  back  again! 


I  will  not  have  it! 


JuAF. 


Listen,  little  one. 
Juan  is  not  a  living  man  by  himself; 
His  life  is  breathed  in  him  by  other  men. 
And  they  speak  out  of  him.     He  is  their  voice 
Juan's  own  life  he  gave  once  quite  away. 
Pepita's  lover  sang  that  song — not  Juan. 
We  old,  old  poets,  if  we  kept  our  hearts. 
Should  hardly  know  them  from  another  man's. 
They  shrink  to  make  room  for  the  many  more 
We  keep  within  us.     There,  now — one  more  kiss. 
And  then  go  home  again. 

Pepita  {a  little  frightened  after  letting  Juak  hiss  her). 

You  are  not  wicked.'^ 

Juan. 
Ask  your  confessor — tell  him  what  I  said. 

(Pepita  goes  tvhile  Juan  thrums  his  lute  again,  a?id  sings.) 

Came  a  pretty  maid 

By  the  moon's  pure  light, 
Loved  me  well,  she  said, 

Eyes  with  tears  all  bright, 
A  pretty  maid! 


THE    SPA]SriSH    GYPSY.  365 

But  too  late  she  strayed, 

Moooilight  pure  was  there; 
She  tvas  naught  but  shade 

Hiding  the  more  fair, 
The  heavenly  maid! 

A  vaulted  room  all  stone.  The  light  shed  from  a  high^ 
lamp.  Wooden  rJiairs,  a  desk,  hook-shelves.  The  Pkior 
171  ivhite  frock,  a  black  rosary  with  a  crucifix  of  ebony 
and  ivory  at  his  side,  is  walMng  up  and  doiun,  holding 
a  -written  paper  in  his  hands,  which  are  clasped  behind 
him. 

What  if  this  witness  lies?  he  says  he  heard  her 

Counting  her  blasphemies  on  a  rosary, 

And  in  a  bold  discourse  with  Salomo, 

Say  that  the  Host  was  naught  but  ill-mixed  flour, 

That  it  was  me^-n  to  pray — she  never  prayed. 

I  know  the  man  who  wrote  this  for  a  cur. 

Who  follows  Don  Diego,  sees  life's  good    • 

In  scraps  my  nephew  flings  to  him.     AVhat  then? 

Particular  lies  may  speak  a  general  truth, 

I  guess  him  false,  but  know  her  heretic — 

Know  her  for  Satan's  instrument,  bedecked 

With  heathenish  charms,  luring  the  souls  of  men 

To  damning  trust  in  good  unsanctified. 

Lot  her  be  prisoned — questioned — she  will  give 

Witness  against  herself,  that  were  this  false 

{He  looks  at  the  paper  again  and  reads,  then  again 
thrusts  it  behind  him. ) 

The  matter  and  the  color  are  not  false: 

The  form  concerns  the  witness,  not  the  judge; 

For  proof  is  gathered  by  tlie  sifting  mind, 

Not  given  in  crude  and  formal  circumstance. 

Suspicion  is  a  heaven-sent  lamp,  and  I — 

I  watchman  of  the  Holy  Office,  bear 

That  lam])  in  trust.     I  will  keep  faithful  watch. 

The  Holy  Inquisition's  discipline 

Is  mercy",  saving  her,  if  penitent — 

God  grant  it! — else — root  up  the  poison-plant. 

Though  'twere  a  lily  with  a  golden  heart! 

This  spotless  maiden  with  her  pagan  soul 

Is  the  arch-enemy's  trap:  he  turns  his  back 


3GG  THE   SPANISH   GYPSY. 

On  all  the  prostitutes,  and  watches  her 
To  see  her  poison  men  with  false  belief 
In  rebel  virtues.     She  has  poisoned  Silva; 
His  shifting  mind,  dangerous  in  fitfulness. 
Strong  in  the  contradiction  of  itself. 
Carries  his  young  ambitions  wearily, 
As  holy  vt)ws  regretted.     Once  he  seemed 
The  fresh-oped  flower  of  Christian  knighthood,  born 
For  feats  of  holy  daring;  and  I  said: 
''That  half  of  life  which  I,  as  monk,  renounce. 
Shall  be  fulfilled  in  him:  Silva  will  be 
That  saintly  noble,  that  wise  warrior. 
That  blameless  excellence  in  worldly  gifts 
I  would  have  been,  had  I  not  asked  to  live 
The  higher  life  of  man  impersonal 
Who  reigns  o'er  all  things  by  refusing  all." 
What  is  his  promise  now?     Apostasy 
From  every  high  intent: — languid,  nay,  gone. 
The  prompt  devoutness  of  a  generous  heart. 
The  strong  obedience  of  a  reverent  will, 
That  breathes  the  Church's  air  and  sees  her  light. 
He  peers  and  strains  with  feeble  questioning, 
Or  else  he  Jests.     He  thinks  I  know  it  not — 
I  who  have  read  the  history  of  his  lapse. 
As  clear  as  it  is  writ  in  the  angel's  book. 
He  will  defy  me — flings  great  words  at  me — 
Me  who  have  governed  all  our  house's  acts, 
Since  I,  a  stripling,  ruled  his  stripling  father. 
This  maiden  is  the  cause,  and  if  they  wed. 
The  Holy  War  may  count  a  captain  lost. 
For  better  he  were  dead  than  keep  his  place. 
And  fill  it  infamously:  in  God's  war 
Slackness  is  infamy.     Shall  I  stand  by 
And  let  the  tempter  win?  defraud  Christ's  cause. 
And  blot  his  banner? — all  for  scruples  weak 
Of  pity  toward  their  young  and  frolicsome  blood; 
Or  nice  discrimination  of  the  tool 
By  which  my  hand  shall  work  a  sacred  rescue? 
The  fence  of  rules  is  for  the  purblind  crowd; 
They  walk  by  averaged  precepts:  sovereign  men. 
Seeing  by  God's  light,  see  the  general 
By  seeing  all  the  special — own  no  rule 
But  their  full  vision  of  the  moment's  worth. 
'Tis  so  God  governs,  using  wicked  men — 
Nay,  scheming  fiends,  to  work  his  purposes. 


THE   SPAKISH   GYPSY.  367 

Evil  that  good  may  come?    Measure  the  good 
Before  you  say  what's  evil.     Perjury? 
I  scorn  the  perjurer,  but  I  will  use  him 
To  serve  the  holy  truth.     There  is  no  lie 
Save  in  his  soul,  and  let  his  soul  be  judged. 
I  know  the  truth,  and  act  upon  the  truth. 

0  God,  thou  knowest  that  my  will  is  pure. 
Thy  servant  owns  naught  for  himself,  his  wealth 
Is  but  obedience.     And  I  have  sinned 
In  keeping  small  respects  of  human  love- 
Calling  it  mercy.     Mercy?     Where  evil  is 
True  mercy  holds  a  sword.     Mercy  would  save. 
Save  whom?     Save  serpents,  locusts,  wolves? 
Or  out  of  pity  let  the  idiots  gorge 
Within  a  famished  town?     Or  save  the  gains 
Of  men  who  trade  in  poison  lest  they  starve? 
Save  all  things  mean  and  foul  that  clog  the  earth 
Stifling  the  better?     Save  the  fools  who  cling 
For  refuge  round  their  hideous  idol's  limbSj 
So  leave  the  idol  grinning  unconsumed, 
And  save  the  fools  to  breed  idolaters? 
0  mercy  worthy  of  the  licking  hound 
That  knows  no  future  but  its  feeding  time! 
Mercy  has  eyes  that  j)ierce  the  ages — sees 
From  heights  divine  of  the  eternal  purpose 
Far-scattered  consequence  in  its  vast  sum; 
Chooses  to  save,  but  with  illumined  vision 
Sees  that  to  save  is  greatly  to  destroy. 
'Tis  so  the  Holy  Inquisition  sees:  its  wrath 
Is  fed  from  the  strong  heart  of  wisest  love. 
For  love  must  needs  make  hatred.     He  who  loves 
God  and  his  law  must  hate  the  foes  of  God. 
And  I  have  sinned  in  being  merciful: 
Being  slack  in  hate,  I  have  been  slack  in  love. 

{He  takes  the  crucifix  andliolds  it  up  before  Mm.) 

Thou  shuddering,  bleeding,  thirsting,  dying  God, 

Thou  man  of  Sorrows,  scourged  and  bruised  and  torn, 

Suffering  to  save — wilt  tluni  not  judge  the  world? 

This  arm  which  held  the  children,  this  pale  hand 

That  gently  touched  the  eyelids  of  the  bliiul, 

And  opened  jiassive  to  the  cruel  nail. 

Shall  one  day  stretch  to  leftward  of  thy  throne. 


368  THE   SPANISH    GYPSY. 

Charged  with  the  power  that  makes  the  lightning 

strong. 
And  hurl  thy  foes  to  everlasting  hell. 
And  thou.  Immaculate  Mother,  Virgin  mild, 
Thou  sevenfold-pierced,  thou  pitying,  pleading  Queen, 
Shalt  see  and  smile,  while  the  black  filthy  souls 
Sink  with  foul  weight  to  their  eternal  place. 
Purging  the  Holy  Light.     Yea,  I  have  sinned 
And  called  it  mercy.     But  I  shrink  no  more. 
To-morrow  morn  this  temptress  shall  be  safe 
Under  the  Holy  Inquisition's  key. 
He  thinks  to  wed  her,  and  defy  me  then. 
She  being  shielded  by  our  house's  name. 
But  he  shall  never  wed  her.     I  have  said. 

The  time  is  come.     Exurge,  Domine, 
Judica  causam  tuam.     Let  thy  foes 
Be  driven  as  the  smoke  before  the  wind, 
And  melt  like  wax  upon  the  furnace  lip! 

A  large  chamher  richly  furnished  ojjening  on  a  terrace- 
garden,  the  trees  visible  through  the  vnndo'w  in  faint 
moonlight.  Flowers  hanging  about  the  tvindoto,  lit  u-p 
hy  the  tapers.  The  cashet  of  jewels  open  on  a  table.  The 
gold  nechlace  lying  near.  Fed  alma,  splendidly  dressed 
and  adorned  with  pearls  and  rubies,  is  ■wcdhing  up  and 
down. 

So  soft  a  night  was  never  made  for  sleep. 

But  for  the  waking  of  the  finer  sense 

To  every  murmuring  and  gentle  sound, 

To  subtlest  odors,  pulses,  visitings 

That  touch  our  frames  with  wings  too  delicate 

To  be  discerned  amid  the  glare  of  day. 

[She  pauses  near  the  window  to  gather  some  jasmine :  then 

walks  again.) 

Surely  these  flowers  keep  happy  watch — their  breath 

Is  their  fond  memor}'  of  the  loving  light. 

I  often  rue  the  hours  I  lose  in  sleep: 

It  is  a  bliss  too  brief,  only  to  see 

This  glorious  world,  to  hear  the  voice  of  love, 

To  feel  the  touch,  the  breath  of  tenderness, 

And  then  to  rest  as  from  a  spectacle. 

I  need  the  curtained  stillness  of  the  night 


THE   SPANISH   GYPSY.  369 

To  live  through  all  my  happy  hours  again 

With  more  selection — cull  them  quite  away 

From  blemished  moments.     Then  in  loneliness 

The  face  tliat  bent  before  me  m  the  day 

Eises  in  its  own  light,  more  vivid  seems 

Painted  upon  the  dark,  and  ceaseless  glows 

With  sweet  solemnity  of  gazing  love. 

Till  like  the  heavenly  blue  it  seems  to  grow 

Nearer,  more  kindred,  and  more  cherishing. 

Mingling  with  all  my  being.     Then  the  words. 

The  tender  low-toned  words  come  back  again. 

With  repetition  welcome  as  the  chime 

Of  softly  hurrying  brooks — "My  only  love — 

My  love  while  life  shall  last — my  own  Fedalma!" 

Oh,  it  is  mine — the  joy  that  once  has  been! 

Poor  eager  hope  is  but  a  stammerer. 

Must  listen  dumbly  to  great  memory, 

Who  makes  our  bliss  the  sweeter  by  her  telling. 

{She  pauses  a  moment  m,usingly.) 

But  that  dumb  hope  is  still  a  sleeping  guard 
Whose  quiet  rhythmic  breath  saves  me  from  dread 
In  this  fair  paradise.     For  if  the  earth 
Broke  off  v/ith  flower-fringed  edge,  visibly  sheer. 
Leaving  no  footing  for  my  forward  step 

But  empty  blackness 

Nay,  there  is  no  fear — 
They  will  renew  themselves,  day  and  my  joy. 
And  all  that  past  which  is  seciirely  inine. 
Will  be  the  hidden  root  that  nourishes 
Our  still  unfolding,  ever-ripening  love! 

( While  she  is  uttering  the  last  words,  a  little  bird  faUs 
softly  on  the  floor  lehind  her;  she  hears  the  light  sound 
of  its  fall  and  turns  round.) 

Did  something  enter? 


Yes,  this  little  bird- 


(She  lifts  it.) 

Dead  and  yet  warm;  'twas  seeking  sanctuary. 
And  died,  perhaps  of  fright,  at  the  altar  foot. 
Stay,  there  is  something  tied  beneath  the  wing! 
A  strip  of  linen,  streaked  with  blood — what  blood? 
24 


370  THE    SPANISH    GYPSY. 

The  streaks  are  written  words — are  sent  to  me — 

0  God,  are  sent  to  me!     Dear  child,  Fedalma, 
Be  brave,  give  no  alarm — your  Father  comes! 

{She  lets  the  Mrdfall  agavi.) 

My  Father comes my  Father 

{She  turns  in  quivering  expectation  toward  the  window. 
There  is  perfect  stillness  a  few  moments  until  Zarca 
appears  at  the  ivindoio.  He  enters  quicJcly  and  noise- 
lessly; then  stands  still  at  his  full  height,  and.  at  a  dis- 
tance frorn  Fedalma.) 

Fedalma  {in  a  low  distinct  to7ie  of  terror). 

It  is  he! 

1  said  his  fate  had  hiid.  its  hold  on  mine. 

Zarca  {advancing  a  step  or  two). 
You  know,  then,  who  I  am? 

Fedalma. 

The  prisoner — 
He  whom  I  saw  in  fetters — and  this  necklace 


Zarca. 

Was  played  with  by  yonr  fingers  when  it  hung 
About  my  neck,  full  fifteen  years  ago. 

Fedalma  {loohing  at  the  necklace  and  handling  it,  then 
speaking,  as  if  unconsciously). 

Full  fifteen  years  ago! 

Zarca. 

The  very  day 
I  lost  you,  when  you  wore  a  tiny  gown 
Of  scarlet  cloth  with  golden  broidery: 
'"Twas  clasped  in  front  by  coins — two  golden  coins. 
The  one  upon  the  left  was  split  in  two 
Across  the  king's  head,  right  from  brow  to  nape, 
A  dent  i'  the  middle  nicking  in  the  cheek. 
You  see  I  know  the  little  gown  by  heart. 


THE   SPANISH    GYPSY.  371 

Fedalma  {groiving  jjaler  and  more  Iremulous). 

Yes.     It  is  true — I  have  the  gown — the  clasps — 
The  braid — sore  tarnished: — it  is  long  ago! 

Zarca. 

But  yesterday  to  me;  for  till  to-day 
I  saw  you  always  as  that  little  child. 
And  when  they  took  my  necklace  from  me,  still 
Your  fingers  played  about  it  on  my  neck, 
And  still  those  buds  of  fingers  on  your  feet 
Caught  in  its  meshes  as  you  seemed  to  climb 
Up  to  my  shoulder.     You  were  not  stolen  all. 
You  had  a  double  life  fed  from  my  hcarf 

(Fedalma,  letting  fall  ilie  necklace,  makes  an  impulsive 
movement  toward  Mm,  ivith  outstretched  Jiands. ) 

The  Gypsy  father  loves  his  children  well. 

Fedalma  {shrmking,  trembling,  and  letting  fall  her  hands). 

How  came  it  that  you  sought  me — no — I  mean 
HoAv  came  it  that  you  knew  me — that  you  lost  me? 

Zarca  {standing  i^crfectly  still). 

Poor  child!  I  see — your  father  and  his  rags 
Are  welcome  as  the  piercing  wintry  wind 
Within  this  silken  chamber.     It  is  well. 
I  would  ?iot  have  a  child  who  stooped  to  feign, 
And  aped  a  sudden  love.     Better,  true  hale. 

Fedalma  {raising  her  eyes  toward  him,  witli  a  flash  of 
admiration,  and  looking  at  him  fixedly). 

Father,  how  was  it  that  we  lost  each  other? 

Zarca. 

I  lost  you  as  a  man  may  lose  a  gem 

Wherein  he  has  compressed  his  total  wealth. 

Or  the  rigiit  hand  whose  cunning  makes  him  great-. 

I  lost  you  by  a  trivial  accident. 

Marauding  Spaniards,  sweeping  like  a  storm 

Over  a  spot  within  the  Moorish  bounds, 

Near  where  our  camp  lay,  doubtless  snatched  you  up, 

When  Zind,  your  nurse,  as  she  confessed,  was  urged 


372  THE   SPANISH    GYPSY. 

By  burning  thirst  to  wander  toward  the  stream. 
And  leave  you  on  the  sand  some  paces  off 
Playing  with  pebbles,  while  she  dog-like  lapped. 
^Twas  so  I  lost  yon — never  saw  you  more 
Until  to-day  I  saw  yon  dancing!     Saw 
The  daughter  of  the  Zincala  make  sport 
For  those  who  spit  upon  her  people's  name. 

Fedalma  {vehemently). 

It  was  not  sport.     What  if  the  world  looked  on? — 

I  danced  for  joy — for  love  of  all  the  world. 

But  when  you  looked  at  me  my  Joy  was  stabbed — 

Stabbed    with    your    pain.      I    wondered now    I 

know 

It  was  my  father's  pain. 

{She  pauses  a  moment  toith  eyes  hent  downioard,  durinrj 
tohich  Z  ARC  A  examines  her  face.     Then  she  says  quickly, ) 

How  were  you  sure 
At  once  I  was  your  child? 

Zarca. 

I  had  witness  strong 
As  any  Cadi  needs,  before  I  saw  you! 
I  fitted  all  my  memories  with  the  chat 
Of  one  named  Juan — one  Avhose  rapid  talk 
Showers  like  the  blossoms  from  a  light-twigged  shrub. 
If  3"0u  but  cough  beside  it.     I  learned  all 
The  story  of  your  Spanish. nurture — all 
The  promise  of  your  fortune.     When  at  last 
I  fronted  you,  my  little  maid  full-grown, 
Belief  was  turned  to  vision:  then  I  saw 
That  she  whom  Spaniards  called  the  bright  Fedalma — • 
The  little  red-frocked  foundling  three  years  old — 
Grown  to  such  perfectness  the  Spanish  Duke 
Had  wooed  her  for  his  Duchess — was  the  child. 
Sole  offspring  of  my  flesh,  that  Lambra  bore 
One  hour  before  the  Christian,  hunting  us. 
Hurried  her  on  to  death.     Therefore  I  sought — 
Therefore  I  come  to  claim  you — claim  my  child. 
Not  from  the  Spaniard,  not  from  him  who  robbed. 
But  from  herself. 


THE    SPANISH    GYPSY.  373 

(Fedalma  lias  gradually  upproaclied  close  to  Zarca,  and 
ivitli  a  low  sol)  sinks  on  he?-  knees  before  him.  He  stoops 
to  kiss  her  broiu,  and  lays  his  hands  on  her  head.) 

Zarca  {with  solemn  tenderness). 
Then  my  child  owns  her  father? 

Fedalma. 

Father!  yes. 
I  will  eat  dust  before  I  will  deny 
The  flesh  I  spring  from, 

Zarca. 

There  my  daughter  spoke. 
Away  then  with  these  rubies! 

{He  seizes  the  circlet  of  rallies  and  flings  it  on  the  ground. 
Fedalma,  starting  from  the  ground  loith  strong  emotion, 
shrinks  backward. ) 

Such  a  crown 
Is  infamy  around  a  Zincala^s  brow. 
It  is  her  people's  blood,  decking  her  shame. 

Fedalma  {after  a  moment,  slowly  and  distinctly,  as  if 

acceiiting  a  doom). 

Then 1  was  born a  Zincala? 

Zarca. 

Unmixed  as  virgin  wino-juice. 


Of  a  blood 


Fedalma. 

Of  a  race 
More  outcast  and  despised  than  Moor  oi-  Jew? 

Zarca. 

Yes:  wanderers  whom  no  Tlod  took  knowledge  of 
,To  give  them  laws,  to  light  fur  them,  or  blight 
Another  race  to  make  them  ampler  i-oom; 


374  THE  SPANISH   GYPSY. 

Who  have  no  Whence  or  Whither  in  their  souls, 
No  dimmest  lore  of  glorious  ancestors 
To  make  a  common  hearth  for  piety. 

Fedalma. 

A  race  that  lives  on  prey  as  foxes  do 

With  stealthy,  petty  rapine:  so  despised. 

It  is  not  persecuted,  only  spurned, 

Crushed  underfoot,  warred  on  by  chance  like  rats, 

Or  swarming  flies,  or  reptiles  of  the  sea 

Dragged  in  the  net  unsought,  and  flung  far  off 

To  perish  as  they  may? 

Zakca. 

You  paint  us  well. 
So  abject  are  the  men  whose  blood  we  share: 
Untutored,  unbefriended,  unendowed; 
No  favorites  of  heaven  or  of  men. 
Therefore  I  cling  to  them!     Therefore  no  lure 
Shall  draw  me  to  disown  them,  or  forsake 
The  meagre  wandering  herd  that  lows  for  help 
And  needs  me  for  its  guide,  to  seek  my  pasture 
Among  the  well-fed  beeves  that  graze  at  will. 
Because  our  race  has  no  great  memories, 
I  will  so  live,  it  shall  remember  me 
For  deeds  of  such  divine  beneficence 
As  rivers  have,  that  teach  men  what  is  good 
By  blessing  them.     I  have  been  scliooled — have  caught 
Lore  from  the  Hebrew,  deftness  from  the  Moor — 
Know  the  rich  heritage,  the  milder  life. 
Of  nations  fathered  by  a  mighty  Past; 
But  were  our  race  accursed  (as  they  who  make 
Good  luck  a  god  count  all  unlucky  men) 
I  would  espouse  their  curse  sooner  than  take 
My  gifts  from  brethren  naked  of  all  good. 
And  lend  them  to  the  rich  for  usury. 

(Fedalma  again  advances,  and  putting  fortli  her  right 
hand  grasjjs  Zarca's  left.  He  places  his  other  hand  on 
her  shoulder.     They  stand  so,  looking  at  each  other.) 

Zarca. 

And  you,  my  child?  are  you  of  other  mind. 
Choosing  forgetfulness,  hating  the  truth 


THE   SPANISH   GYPSY.  375 

That  says  you  are  akin  to  needy  men? — 
Wishing  your  father  were  some  Christian  Duke, 
Who  could  hang  Gypsies  when  their  task  was  done, 
While  you,  his  daughter,  were  not  bound  to  care? 

Fedalma  {in  a  troubled  eager  voice). 

No,  I  should  always  care — I  cared  for  you — 
For  all,  before  I  dreamed 

Zarca. 

Before  yon  dreamed 
That  you  were  born  a  Ziucala — your  flesh 
Stamped  with  your  people's  faith. 

Fedalma  {Utterly). 

The  Gypsies'  faith? 
Men  say  they  have  none. 

Zarca. 

Oh,  it  is  a  faith 
Taught  by  no  priest,  but  by  their  beating  hearts; 
Faith  to  each  other;  the  iitlelity 
Of  feHow  wanderei's  in  a  desert  place 
Who  share  the  same  dire  thirst,  and  therefore  share 
The  scanty  water;  the  fidelity 
Of  men  whose  pulses  leap  with  kindred  fire. 
Who  in  the  flash  of  eyes,  the  .clasp  of  hands, 
The  speech  that  even  in  lying  tells  the  truth 
Of  heritage  inevitable  as  birth, 
Nay,  in  the  silent  bodily  presence  feel 
The  mystic  stirring  of  a  common  life 
Which  makes  the  many  one;  fidelity 
To  the  consecrating  oath  our  sponsor  Fate 
Made  throngh  our  infant  breath  when  we  were  born 
The  fellow-iieirs  of  that  small  island,  Life, 
Where  we  must  dig  and  sow  and  reap  with  brothers. 
Fear  thon  that  oath,  my  daughter — nay,  not  fear. 
But  love  it;  for  the  sanctity  of  oaths 
Lies  not  in  lightning  that  avenges  theui, 
But  in  the  injury  wrought  by  broken  bonds 
And  in  the  garnered  good  of  human  trust. 
And  you  have  sworn— even  with  your  infant  breath 
You  too  were  pledged 


376  THE   SPANISH   GYPSY. 

Fedalma  {letting  go  Zarca's  hand,  and  sinMng  lach- 
ward  on  her  knees,  loith  lent  head,  as  if  before  some  im- 
pending crushing  weight). 

To  what?  what  have  I  sworn? 

Zarca. 

To  take  the  heirship  of  the  Gypsy's  child; 

The  child  of  him  who,  being  chief,  will  be 

The  savior  of  his  tribe-,  or  if  he  fail 

Will  choose  to  fail  rather  than  basely  win 

The  prize  of  renegades.     Nay  will  not  choose — 

Is  there  a  choice  for  strong  souls  to  be  weak? 

For  men  erect  to  crawl  like  hissing  snakes? 

I  choose  not — I  am  Zarca.     Let  him  choose 

Who  halts  and  wavers,  having  appetite 

To  feed  on  garbage.     You,  my  child — are  you 

Halting  and  wavering? 

Fedalma  {raising  her  head). 

Say  what  is  my  task. 

Zarca. 

To  be  the  angel  of  a  homeless  tribe; 

To  help  me  bless  a  race  taught  by  no  prophet 

And  make  their  name,  now  but  a  badge  of  scorn, 

A  glorious  banner  floating  in  their  midst. 

Stirring  the  air  they  breathe  with  impulses 

Of  generous  pride,  exalting  fellowship 

Until  it  soars  to  magnanimity. 

I'll  guide  my  brethren  forth  to  their  new  land, 

Where  they  shall  plant  and  sow  and  reap  their  own^ 

Serving  each  other's  needs,  and  so  be  spurred 

To  skill  in  all  the  arts  that  succor  life; 

Where  we  may  kindle  our  first  altar-fire 

From  settled  hearths,  and  call  our  Holy  Place 

The  hearth  that  binds  us  in  one  family. 

That  land  awaits  them;  they  await  their  chief — 

Me  who  am  prisoned.     All  depends  on  you. 

Fedalma  {rising  to  her  full  Jieighi  and  looking  solemnly 

fit  Zarca). 

Father,  your  child  is  ready!     She  will  not 
Forsake  her  kindred;  she  will  brave  all  scorn 


THE    SPANISH    GYPSY.  377 

Sooner  than  scorn  herself.     Let  Spaniards  all. 
Christians,  Jews,  Moors,  shoot  out  the  lip  and  say, 

''  Lo,  the  first  hero  in  a  tribe  of  thieves." 
Is  it  not  written  so  of  them?     They,  too. 
Were  slaves,  lost,  wandering,  sunk  beneath  a  curse. 
Till  Moses,  Christ  an.d  Mahomet  were  born. 
Till  beings  lonely  in  their  greatness  lived. 
And  lived  to  save  their  people.     Father,  listen. 
The  Duke  to-morrow  weds  me  secretly; 
But  straight  he  will  present  me  as  his  wife 
To  all  his  household,  cavaliers  and  dames 
And  noble  pages.     Then  I  will  declare 
Before  them  all,  "  I  am  his  daughter,  his. 
The  Gypsy's,  owner  of  this  golden  badge." 
Then  I  shall  win  your  freedom;  then  the  Duke — 
Why,  he  will  be  your  son! — will  send  you  forth 
With  aid  and  honors.     Then,  before  all  eyes 
I'll  clasp  this  badge  on  you,  and  lift  my  brow 
For  you  to  kiss  it,  saying  by  that  sign, 

*  I  glory  in  my  father.'  "     This,  to-morrow. 

Zarca. 

A  woman's  dream — who  thinks  by  smiling  well 
To  ripen  figs  in  frost.     What!  marry  first. 
And  then  'proclaim  your  birth?     Enslave  yourself 
To  use  your  freedom?     Share  another's  name, 
Then  treat  it  as  you  will?     How  will  that  tunc 
King  in  your  bridegroom's  ears — that  sudden  song 
Of  triumph  in  your  Gypsy  father? 

Fedalma  {discouraged). 

Nay, 
I  meant  not  so.     We  marry  hastily — 
Yet  there  is  time — there  will  be: — in  less  space 
Than  he  can  take  to  look  at  me,  I'll  speak 
And  tell  liim  all.     Oh,  1  am  not  afraid! 
His  love  for  me  is  stronger  than  all  hate; 
Nay,  stronger  than  my  love,  which  cannot  sway 
Demons  that  haunt  me — tempt  me  to  rebel. 
Were  he  Fedalma  and  I  Silva,  he 
Could  love  confession,  prayers,  and  tonsured  monks 
If  my  soul  craved  them.     He  will  never  iiate 
The  race  that  bore  him  what  he  loves  the  most. 
I  shall  but  do  more  strongly  what  I  will. 


o78  THE   SPANISH    GYjrST. 

Having  his  will  to  help  me.     Aud  to-morrow. 
Father,  as  surely  as  this  heart  shall  beat, 
You — every  Gypsy  chained,  shall  be  set  free, 

i 

Zarca  {coming  nearer  to  her  and  laying  Ms  hand  on  her    ^ 

shoulder). 

Too  late,  too  poor  a  service  that,  my  child! 

Not  so  the  woman  who  would  save  her  tribe 

Must  help  its  heroes — not  by  wordy  breath. 

By  easy  prayers  strong  in  a  lover^s  ear. 

By  showering  wreaths  and  sweets  and  wafted  kisses. 

And  then,  when  all  the  smiling  work  is  done. 

Turning  to  rest  upon  her  down  again. 

And  whisper  languid  pity  for  her  race 

Upon  the  bosom  of  her  alien  spouse. 

Not  to  such  petty  mercies  as  can  fall 

'Twixt  stitch  and  stitch  of  silken  broidery. 

Such  miracles  of  mitred  saints  who  pause 

Beneath  their  gilded  canopy  to  heal 

A  man  sun-stricken:  not  to  such  trim  merit 

As  soils  its  dainty  shoes  for  charity 

And  simpers  meekly  at  the  pious  stain. 

But  never  trod  with  naked  bleeding  feet 

Where  no  man  praised  it,  and  where  na Church  blessed; 

Not  to  such  almsdeeds  fit  for  holidays 

Were  you,  my  daughter,  consecrated — bound 

By  laws  that,  breaking,  you  will  dip  your  bread 

In  murdered  brother's  blood  and  call  it  sweet — 

When  you  were  born  beneath  the  dark  man's  tent. 

And  lifted  up  in  sight  of  all  your  tribe. 

Who  greeted  you  with  shouts  of  loyal  joy. 

Sole  offspring  of  the  chief  in  whom  they' trust 

As  in  the  oft-tried  never-failing  flint 

They  strike  their  fire  from.     Other  work  is  yours. 

Fedalma. 
What  work? — what  is  it  that  you  ask  of  me? 

Zarca. 

A  work  as  pregnant  as  the  act  of  men 

Who  set  their  ships  aflame  and  spring  to  land, 

A  fatal  deed 


the  spanish  gypsy.  379 

Fbdalma. 

stay!  never  utter  it! 
If  it  can  part  my  lot  from  his  whose  love 
Has  chosen  me.     Talk  not  of  oaths,  of  birth. 
Of  men  as  numerous  as  the  dim  white  stars — 
As  cold  and  distant,  too,  for  my  heart's  pulse. 
No  ills  on  earth,  though  you  should  count  them  up 
With  grains  to  make  a  mountain,  can  outweigh 
For  me,  his  ill  who  is  my  supreme  love. 
All  sorrows  else  are  but  imagined  flames. 
Making  me  shudder  at  an  unfelt  smart; 
But  his  imagined  sorrow  is  a  tire 
That  scorches  me. 

Zarca. 

I  know,  I  know  it  well — 
The  first  young  passionate  wail  of  spirits  called 
To  some  great  destiny.     In  vain,  my  daughter! 
Lay  the  young  eagle  in  what  nest  you  will. 
The  cry  and  swoop  of  engles  overhead 
Vibrate  prophetic  in  its  kindred  frame. 
And  make  it  spread  its  wings  and  poise  itself 
For  the  eagle's  flight.     Hear  what  you  have  to  do. 

(Fed ALMA  stands  half  averted,  as  if  she  dreaded  the  effect 
of  Ms  looks  and  words. ) 

My  comrades  even  now  file  off  their  chains 

In  a  low  turret  by  the  battlements. 

Where  we  were  locked  with  slight  and  sleepy  guard — 

We  who  had  files  hid  in  our  shaggy  hair, 

And  possible  rojjes  that  waited  but  our  will 

In  half  our  garments.     Oh,  the  Moorish  blood 

Runs  thick  and  warm  to  us,  though  thinned  by  chrism. 

I  found  a  friend  am.'ng  our  gaolers — one 

Who  loves  the  Gypsy  as  the  Moors  ally. 

I  know  the  secrets  of  this  fortress.     Ijisten. 

Hard  by  yon  terrace  is  a  narrow  stair, 

Cut  in  the  living  rock,  and  at  one  point 

In  its  slow  straggling  course  it  branches  off 

Toward  a  low  wooden  door,  that  art  has  bossed 

To  such  unevenness,  it  seems  one  piece 

With  the  rougli-hown  rock.     0])en  that  door,  it  leads 

Through  a  broad  passage  burrowed  umler-grouud 

A  good  half  mile  out  to  the  open  plain: 


380  THE   SPAXISH   GYPSY. 

Made  for  escape,  in  dire  extremity 
From  siege  or  burning,  of  the  house's  Avealth 
In  women  or  in  gold.     To  find  that  door 
Needs  one  who  knoAvs  the  number  of  the  steps 
Just  to  the  turning-point;  to  open  it. 
Needs  one  who  knows  the  secret  of  the  bolt. 
You  have  that  secret:  you  will  ope  that  door. 
And  fly  with  us. 

Pedalma  (receding  a  little,  and  gathering  herself  up  in  an 
attitude  of  resolve  opposite  to  Zarca.) 

No,  I  will  never  fly! 
Never  forsake  that  chief  half  of  my  soul 
Where  lies  my  love.     I  swear  to  set  you  free. 
Ask  for  no  more;  it  is  not  possible. 
Father,  my  soul  is  not  too  base  to  ring 
At  touch  of  your  great  thoughts;  nay,  in  my  blood 
There  streams  the  sense  unspeakable  of  kind, 
As  leopard  feels  at  ease  with  leopard.     But — 
Look  at  these  hands!    You  say  when  they  were  little 
They  played  about  the  gold  upon  your  neck. 
I  do  believe  it,  for  their  tiny  pulse 
Made  record  of  it  in  the  inmost  coil 
Of  growing  memory.     But  see  them  now! 
Oh,  they  have  made  fresh  record;  twined  themselves 
With  other  throbbing  hands  whose  pulses  feed 
Not  memories  only  but  a  blended  life — 
Life  that  will  bleed  to  death  if  it  be  severed. 
Have  pity  on  me,  father!     Wait  the  morning; 
Say  you  will  wait  the  morning.     I  will  win 
Your  freedom  openly:  you  shall  go  forth 
With  aid  and  honors.     Silva  will  deny 
Naught  to  my  asking 

Zarca  (witli  contemptuous  decision^. 

Till  you  ask  him  aught 
Wherein  he  is  powei'less.     Soldiers  even  now 
Murmur  against  him  that  he  risks  the  town. 
And  forfeits  all  the  prizes  of  a  foray 
To  get  his  bridal  pleasure  with  a  bride 
Too  low  for  him.     They'll  murmur  more  and  louder 
If  captives  of  our  pith  and  sinew,  fit 
For  all  the  work  the  Spaniard  hates,  are  freed — 
Now,  too,  when  Spanish  hands  are  scanty.     What, 


THE   SPANISH   GYPSY.  381 

Turn  Gypsies  loose  instead  of  hanging  them! 
^Tis  flat  against  the  edict.     Nay,  perchance 
Murmurs  aloud  may  turn  to  silent  threats 
Of  some  well-sharpened  dagger;  for  your  Duke 
Has  to  his  heir  a  pious  cousin,  who  deems 
The  Cross  were  better  served  if  he  were  Duke. 
Such  good  you'll  work  your  lover  by  your  prayers. 

Fedalma.  , 

Then,  I  will  free  you  now!     You  shall  be  safe. 
Nor  he  be  blamed,  save  for  his  love  to  me. 
I  will  declare  what  I  have  done:  the  deed 
May  put  our  marriage  ofE ■ 

Zarca. 

Ay,  till  the  time 
When  you  shall  be  a  queen  in  Africa, 
And  he  be  prince  enough  to  sue  for  you. 
You  cannot  free  us  and  come  back  to  him. 

Fedalma. 
And  why? 

Zarca. 
I  would  compel  you  to  go  forth. 

Fedalma. 
You  tell  me  that? 

Zarca. 

Yes,  for  I'd  have  you  choose; 
Though,  being  of  the  blood  you  are— my  blood— 
You  have  no  right  to  choose. 

Fedalma. 

I  only  owe 
A  daughter's  debt;  I  was  not  born  a  slave. 

Zarca. 

No,  not  a  slave;  but  you  were  born  to  reign. 
'Tis  a  compulsion  of  a  higher  sort, 
Whose  fetters  are  the  net  invisible 


383  THE   SPANISH    GYPSY. 

That  hold  all  life  together.     Eoyal  deeds 
May  make  long  destinies  for  multitudes. 
And  you  are  called  to  do  them.     You  belong 
Not  to  the  petty  round  of  circumstance 
That  makes  a  woman's  lot,  but  to  your  tribe. 
Who  trust  in  me  and  in  my  blood  with  trust 
That  men  call  blind;  but  it  is  only  blind 
As  unyeaned  reason  is,  that  grows  and  stirs 
Within  the  womb  of  superstition. 

Pedalma. 

No! 
I  belong  to  him  who  loves  me — whom  I  love — 
Who  chose  me — whom  I  chose — to  whom  I  pledged 
A  woman's  truth.     And  that  is  nature  too. 
Issuing  a  fresher  law  than  laws  of  birth. 

Zarca. 

Unmake  yourself,  then,  from  a  Zincala — 
Unmake  yourself  from  being  child  of  mine! 
Take  holy  water,  cross  your  dark  skin  white; 
Bound  your  proud  eyes  to  foolish  kitten  looks; 
Walk  mincingly,  and  smirk,  and  twitch  your  robe: 
Unmake  yourself — doff  all  the  eagle  plumes 
And  be  a  parrot,  chained  to  a  ring  that  slips 
Upon  a  Spaniard's  thumb,  at  will"  of  his 
That  you  should  prattle  o'er  his  words  again! 
Get  a  small  heart  that  flutters  at  the  smiles 
Of  that  plump  penitent,  that  greedy  saint 
Who  breaks  all  treaties  in  the  name  of  God, 
Saves  souls  by  confiscation,  sends  to  heaven 
The  altar  fumes  of  burning  heretics, 
And  chaffers  with  the  Levite  for  the  gold; 
Holds  Gypsies  beasts  unfit  for  sacrifice, 
So  sweeps  them  out  like  worms  alive  or  dead. 
Go,  trail  your  gold  and  velvet  in  her  court! — 
A  conscious  Zincala,  smile  at  your  rare  luck. 
While  half  your  brethren 

Fedalma. 

I  am  not  so  vile! 
It  is  not  to  such  mockeries  that  I  cling, 
Not  to  the  flaring  tow  of  gala-lights; 
It  is  to  him — my  love — the  face  of  day. 


the  spanish  gypsy.  383 

Zarca. 

What,  will  you  part  him  from  the  air  he  breathes,. 

Never  inhale  with  him  although  you  kiss  him? 

Will  you  adopt  a  soul  without  its  thoughts. 

Or  grasp  a  life  apart  from  flesh  and  blood  ? 

Till  then  you  cannot  wed  a  Spanish  Duke 

And  not  wed  shame  at  mention  of  your  race. 

And  not  wed  hardness  to  their  miseries — 

Nay,  not  wed  murder.     Would  you  save  my  life 

Yet  stab  my  purpose?  maim  my  every  limb, 

Put  out  my  eyes,  and  turn  me  loose  to  feed? 

Is  that  salvation?  rather  drink  my  blood. 

That  child  of  mine  who  weds  my  enemy — 

Adores  a  God  who  took  no  heed  of  Gypsies — 

Forsakes  her  people,  leaves  their  poverty 

To  join  the  luckier  crowd  that  mocks  their  woes — 

That  child  of  mine  is  doubly  murderess. 

Murdering  her  father's  hope,  her  peo})le's  trust. 

Such  draughts  are  mingled  in  your  cup  of  love! 

And  when  you  have  become  a  thing  so  poor. 

Your  life  is  all  a  fashion  without  law 

Save  frail  conjecture  of  a  changing  wish. 

Your  worshiped  sun,  your  smiling  face  of  day. 

Will  turn  to  cloudiness,  and  you  will  shiver 

In  your  thin  finery  of  vain  desire. 

Men  call  his  passion  madness;  and  he,  too. 

May  learn  to  think  it  madness:  'tis  a  thought 

Of  ducal  sanity. 

Fedalma. 

No,  he  is  true! 
And  if  I  part  from  him  I  part  from  joy. 
Oh,  it  was  morning  with  us — I  seemed  young. 
But  now  I  know  I  am  an  aged  sorrow — 
Mv  people's  sorrow.     Father,  since  I  am  yours — 
Since  I  must  walk  an  unslain  sacrifice. 
Carrying  the  knife  within  me,  quivering — 
Put  cords  upon  me,  drag  me  to  the  doom 
My  birtli  has  laid  upon  me.     See,  I  kneel: 
I  cannot  will  to  go. 

Zarca. 

Will  then  to  stay! 
Say  you  will  take  your  better  jiaintcd  such 
By  blind  desire,  and  choose  the  hideous  worse 


o84  THK    Si'ANiSH    GYPSY. 

For  thousands  who  were  happier  but  for  you. 
My  thirty  followers  are  assembled  now 
Without  this  terrace:  I  your  father  wait 
That  you  may  lead  us  forth  to  liberty — 
Restore  me  to  my  tribe — five  hundred  men 
"Whom  I  alone  can  save,  alone  can  rule, 
And  plant  them  as  a  mighty  nation^s  seed. 
Why,  vagabonds  who  clustered  round  one  man. 
Their  voice  of  God,  their  prophet  and  their  king. 
Twice  grew  to  empire  on  the  teeming  shores 
Of  Africa,  and  sent  new  royalties 
To  feed  afresh  the  Arab  sway  in  Spain. 
My  vagabonds  are  a  seed  more  generous. 
Quick  as  the  serpent,  loving  as  the  hound. 
And  beautiful  as  disinherited  gods. 
They  have  a  promised  land  beyond  the  sea: 
There  I  may  lead  them,  raise  my  standard,  call 
The  wandering  Zincali  to  that  new  home. 
And  make  a  nation — bring  light,  order,  law. 
Instead  of  chaos.     You,  my  only  heir. 
Are  called  to  reign  for  me  when  I  am  gone. 
Now  choose  your  deed :  to  save  or  to  destroy. 
You,  a  born  Zincala,  you,  fortunate 
Above  your  fello^^■s — you  who  hold  a  curse 
Or  blessing  in  the  hollow  of  your  hand — 
Say  you  will  loose  that  hand  from  fellowship. 
Let  go  the  rescuing  rope,  hurl  all  the  tribes. 
Children  and  countless  beings  yet  to  come, 
Down  from  the  upward  path  of  light  and  joy. 
Back  to  the  dark  and  marshy  wilderness 
Where  life  is  naught  but  blind  tenacity 
Of  that  which  is.     Say  you  will  curse  your  race! 

?EDALMA  {rising  and  stretcliing  out  lier  arms  in  depre- 
cation). 

No,  no — I  will  not  say  it — I  will  go! 
Father,  I  choose!     I  will  not  take  a  heaven 
Haunted  by  shrieks  of  far-ofi:  misery. 
This  deed  and  I  have  ripened  with  the  hours: 
It  is  a  part  of  me — a  wakened  thought 
That,  rising  like  a  giant,  masters  me. 
And  grows  into  a  doom.     0  mother  life, 
That  seemed  to  nourish  me  so  tenderly. 
Even  in  the  womb  you  vowed  me  to  the  fire. 


THE   SPAJflSH    GYPSY.  385 

Hung  on  my  soul  the  burden  of  men's  hopes, 
And  pledged  me  to  redeem ! — I'll  pay  the  debt. 
You  gave  me  strength  that  I  should  pour  it  all 
Into  this  anguish.     I  can  never  shrink 
Back  into  bliss — my  heart  has  grown  too  big 
With  things  that  might  be.     Father,  I  will  go. 
I  will  strip  off  these  gems.     Some  happier  bride 
Shall  wear  them,  since  Fedalma  would  be  dowered 
With  naught  but  curses,  dowered  with  misery 
Of  men — of  women,  who  have  hearts  to  bleed 
As  hers  is  bleeding. 

{^She  sinks  on  a  seat  and  begms  to  take  off  her  jetvels.) 

Now,  good  gems,  we  part. 
Speak  of  me  always  tenderly  to  Silva. 

{She  pauses,  turning  to  Z  arc  a.) 

0  father,  will  the  women  of  our  tribe 

Suffer  as  I  do,  in  the  years  to  come 

When  you  have  made  them  great  in  Africa? 

Redeemed  from  ignorant  ills  only  to  feel 

A  conscious  woe?     Then — is  it  worth  the  pains? 

Were  it  not  better  when  we  reach  that  shore 

To  raise  a  funeral-pile  and  perish  all. 

So  closing  up  a  myriad  avenues 

To  misery  yet  unwrought?     My  soul  is  faint — 

Will  these  sharp  pangs  buy  any  certain  good? 

Zaeca. 

N"ay,  never  falter:  no  great  deed  is  done 

By  falterers  who  ask  for  certainty. 

No  good  is  certain,  but  the  steadfast  mind. 

The  undivided  will  to  seek  the  good: 

'Tis  that  compels  the  elements,  and  wrings 

A  human  music  from  the  indifferent  air. 

The  greatest  gift  the  hero  leaves  liis  race 

Is  to  liave  been  a  hero.     Say  we  fail  I — 

We  feed  the  high  tradition  of  the  world. 

And  leave  our  spirit  in  our  children's  breasts. 

Fedalma  {unclasping  her  jeweled  belt,  and  f/i rowing  it 

down). 

Yes,  say  that  we  shall  fail!     1  will  not  count 
On  aught  but  being  faithful.     I  will  take 
25 


386  THE   SPANISH   GYPSY. 

This  yearning  self  of  mine  and  strangle  it. 

I  will  not  be  half-hearted:  never  yet 

Fedalma  did  aught  with  a  wavering  soul. 

Die,  my  young  joy— die,  all  my  hungry  hopes— 

The  milk  you  cry  for  from  the  breast  of  life 

Is  thick  with  curses.     Oh,  all  fatness  here 

Snatches  its  meat  from  leanness — feeds  on  graves. 

I  will  seek  nothing  but  to  shun  base  joy. 

The  saints  were  cowards  who  stood  by  to  see 

Christ  crucified:  they  should  have  flung  themselves 

Upon  the  Eoman  spears,  and  died  in  vain- 

The  grandest  death,  to  die  in  vain — for  love 

Greacer  than  sways  the  forces  of  the  world! 

That  death  shall  be  my  bridegroom.     I  will  wed 

The  curse  that  blights  my  people.     Father,  come! 

Zarca. 

No  curse  has  fallen  on  us  till  we  cease 
To  help  each  other.     You,  if  you  are  false 
To  that  first  fellowship,  lay  on  the  curse. 
But  write  now  to  the  Spaniard:  briefly  say 
That  I,  your  father,  came;  that  you  obeyed 
The  fate  which- made  you  a  Zincala,  as  his  fate 
Made  him  a  Spanish  duke  and  Christian  knight. 
He  must  not  think 

Fedalma. 

Yes,  I  will  write,  but  he — 
Oh,  he  would  know  it— he  would  never  think 
The  chain  that  dragged  me  from  him  could  be  aught 
But  scorching  iron  entering  in  my  soul. 

{She  writes.) 

Silva,  sole  love— he  came— my  father  came, 

J  ain  the  daughter  of  the  Gyjjsy  chief 

Who  means  to  be  the  Savior  of  oiir  tribe. 

He  calls  on  me  to  live  for  his' great  end. 

To  livef  nay,  die  for  it.     Fedalma  dies 

In  leavittg  Silva :  all  that  lives  henceforth 

Is  the  jioor  Zincala. 

{She  rises.) 

Father,  now  I  go 
To  wed  my  people's  lot. 


the  spanish  gypsy.  387 

Zap.ca. 

To  wed  a  crown. 
Our  people's  lowly  lot  we  will  make  royal — 
Give  it  a  country,  homes,  and  monuments 
Held  sacred  through  the  lofty  memories 
That  we  shall  leave  behind  us.     Come,  my  Queen! 

Fedalma. 

Stay,  my  betrothal  ring! — one  kiss — farewell! 
0  love,  you  were  my  crown.  No  other  crown 
Is  aught  but  thorns  on  my  poor  woman's  brow. 


BOOK  II. 

SiLVA  was  marching  homeward  while  the  moon 

Still  shed  mild  brightness  like  the  far-off  hope 

Of  those  pale  virgin  lives  that  wait  and  pray. 

The  stars  thin-scattered  made  the  heavens  large. 

Bending  in  slow  procession;  in  the  east 

Emergent  from  the  dark  waves  of  the  hills. 

Seeming  a  little  sister  of  the  moon, 

Glowed  Venus  all  unquenched.     Silva,  in  haste. 

Exultant  and  yet  anxious,  urged  his  troop 

To  quick  and  quicker  march:  he  had  delight 

In  forward  stretching  shadows,  in  the  gleams 

That  traveled  on  the  armor  of  the  van. 

And  in  the  many-hoofed  sound:  in  all  that  told 

Of  hurrying  movement  to  o'ertake  his  thought 

Already  in  Bedmar,  close  to  Fedalma, 

Leading  her  forth  a  wedded  bride,  fast  vowed. 

Defying  Father  Isidor.     His  glance 

Took  in  with  much  content  the  priest  who  rode 

Firm  in  his  saddle,  stalwart  and  broad-backed, 

Crisp-curled,  and  comfortably  secular. 

Eight  in  the  front  of  him.     But  by  degrees 

Stealthily  faint,  disturbing  with  slow  loss 

That  showed  not  yet  full  promise  of  a  gain. 

The  light  was  changing,  and  the  watch  intense 

Of  moon  and  stars  seemed  weary,  shivering: 

The  sharp  white  brightness  passed  from  off  the  rocks 

Carrying  the  shadows:  beauteous  Night  lay  dead 


388  THE    SPANISH    GYPST. 

Under  the  pall  of  twilight,  and  the  love-star 
*■     Sickened  and  shrank.     The  troop  was  winding  now 
Upward  to  where  a  pass  between  the  peaks 
Seemed  like  an  opened  gate — to  Silva  seemed 
An  outer  gate  of  heaven,  for  through  that  pass 
They  entered  his  own  valley,  near  Bedmar. 
Sudden  within  the  pass  a  horseman  rose. 
One  instant  dark  upon  the  banner  pale 
Of  rock-cut  sky,  the  next  in  motion  swift 
AVith  hat  and  plume  high-shaken — ominous. 
Silva  had  dreamed  his  future,  and  the  dream 
Held  not  this  messenger.     A  minute  more — 
It  was  his  friend  Don  Alvar  whom  he  saw 
Eeining  his  horse  up,  face  to  face  with  him, 
Sad  as  the  twilight,  all  his  clothes  ill-girt — 
As  if  he  had  been  roused  to  see  one  die. 
And  brought  the  news  to  him  whom  death  had  robbed. 
Silva  believed  he  saw  the  worst— the  town 
Stormed  by  the  infidel — or,  could  it  be 
Fedalma  dragged? — no,  there  was  not  yet  time. 
But  with  a  marble  face,  he  only  said, 

''What  evil,  Alvar?" 

"What  this  paper  speaks." 
It  was  Fedalma's  letter  folded  close 
And  mute  as  yet  for  Silva.     But  his  friend 
Keeping  it  still  sharp-pinched  against  his  breast, 

"It  will  smite  hard,  my  lord:  a  private  grief. 
I  would  not  have  you  pause  to  read  it  here. 
Let  us  ride  on — we  use  the  moments  best, 
Reaching  the  town  with  speed.     The  smaller  ill 
Is  that  our  Gypsy  prisoners  have  escaped." 

"No  more.     Give  me  the  paper — nay,  I  know — 
^Twill  make  no  difference.    Bid  them  march  on  faster.'*" 
Silva  pushed  forward — held  the  paper  crushed 
Close  to  his  right.      "  They  have  imprisoned  her," 
He  said  to  Alvar  in  low,  hard-cut  tones, 
Like  a  dream-speech  of  slumbering  revenge. 
'No — when  they  came  to  fetch  her  sbe  was  gone." 
Swift  as  the  right  touch  on  a  spring,  that  word 
Made  Silva  read  the  letter.     She  was  gone! 
But  not  into  locked  darkness — only  gone 
Into  free  air — whore  he  might  find  her  yet. 
The  bitter  loss  had  triumph  in  it — what! 
They  would  have  seized  her  with  their  holy  claws 
The  Prior's  sweet  morsel  of  despotic  hate 


THE    SPANISH    GYPSY.  389 

Was  snatched  from  ofE  his  lips.     This  misery- 
Had  yet  a  taste  of  joy.  * 

But  she  was  gone! 
The  sun  had  risen,  and  in  the  castle  walls 
The  light  grew  strong  and  stronger.     Silva  walked 
Througli  the  long  corridor  where  dimness  yet 
Cherished  a  h'ngcring,  flickering,  dying  hope: 
Fedalma  still  was  there — he  could  not  see 
The  vacant  place  that  once  her  presence  filled. 
Can  Ave  believe  that  the  dear  dead  are  gone? 
Love  in  sad  weeds  forgets  the  funeral  day, 
Opens  the  chamber  door  and  almost  smiles — 
Then  sees  the  sunbeams  pierce  athwart  the  bed 
Where  the  pale  face  is  not.     So  Silva's  joy. 
Like  the  sweet  habit  of  caressing  hands 
That  seek  the  memory  of  another  iiand. 
Still  lived  on  fitfully  in  s})ite  of  words, 
And,  numbing  thought  witli  vague  illusion,  dulled 
The  slow  and  steadfast  beat  of  certainty. 
But  in  the  rooms  inexorable  light 
Streamed  through  the  open  window  where  she  fled. 
Streamed  on  the  belt  and  coronet  thrown  down — 
Mute  witnesses — sought  out  the  typic  ring- 
That  sparkled  on  the  crimson,  solitary. 
Wounding  him  like  a  word.     0  hateful  light! 
It  filled  the  chambers  witii  her  absence,  ghired-^ 
On  all  the  motionless  things  her  liand  had  touched, 
Motionless  all — save  where  old  Inez  lay 
Sunk  on  the  floor  liolding  her  rosary. 
Making  its  sliadow  tremble  with  her  fear. 
And  Silva  passed  her  by  because  she  grieved: 
It  was  the  lute,  the  gems,  tlie  pictured  heads. 
He  longed  to  crusli,  because  they  made  no  sign 
But  of  insistence  that  she  was  not  there. 
She  who  had  filled  his  sight  and  hidden  them. 
He  went  forth  on  the  terrace  tow'rd  the  stairs, 
Saw  tiie  rained  petals  of  the  cistus  flowers 
Crushed  by  large  feet;  but  on  one  shady  spot 
Far  down  the  steps,  where  dampness  nnule  a  home. 
He  saw  a  footprint  delicate-slippered,  small. 
So  dear  to  him,  he  searched  for  sister-prints. 
Searched  in  the  rock-hewn  passage  with  a  lamp 
For  other  trace  of  lier,  and  found  a  glove; 
But  not  Fedalma's.     It  was  Juan's  glove, 
Tasseled,  perfumed,  embroidered  with  his  name. 


390  THE   SPANISH    GYPSY. 

I      A  gift  of  dames.     Then  Juan,  too,  was  gone? 

FiTll-mouthed  conjecture,  hurrying  through  the  town. 
Had  spread  the  tale  already:  it  was  he 
That  helped  tlie  Gypsies'  flight.     He  talked  and  sang 
Of  nothing  but  the  Gypsies  and  Fedalma. 
He  drew  the  threads  together,  wove  the  plan; 
Had  lingered  out  by  moonlight,  had  been  seen 
Strolling,  as  was  his  wont,  within  the  walls, 
Humming  his  ditties.     So  Don  Alvar  told, 
Conveying  outside  rumor.     But  the  Duke, 
Making  of  haughtiness  a  visor  closed, 
•  Would  show  no  agitated  front  in  quest 
Of  small  disclosures.     What  her  writing  bore 
Had  been  enough.     He  knew  that  she  was  gone. 
Knew  why, 

"  The  Duke,"  some  said,  "  will  send  a  force, 
Eetake  the  prisoners,  and  bring  back  his  bride." 
But  others,  winking,  ''Way,  her  wedding  dress 
Would  be  the  san-henito.     'Tis  a  fight 
Between  the  Duke  and  Prior.     Wise  bets  will  choose 

The  churchman:  he's  the  iron,  and  the  Duke " 

'Is  a  fine  piece  of  pottery,"  said  mine  host. 
Softening  the  sarcasm  with  a  bland  regret. 

There  was  the  thread  that  in  the  new-made  knot 

Of  obstinate  circumstance  seemed  hardest  drawn. 

Vexed  most  the  sense  of  Silva,  in  these  hours 

Of  fresh  and  angry  pain — there,  in  that  fight 

Against  a  foe  whose  sword  was  magical. 

His  shield  invisible  terrors — against  a  foe 

Who  stood  as  if  upon  the  smoking  mount 

Ordaining  plagues.     All  else,  Fedalma's  flight. 

The  father's  claim,  her  Gypsy  birth  disclosed. 

Were  momentary  crosses,  hindrances 

A  Spanish  noble  might  despise.     This  Chief 

Might  still  be  treated  with,  would  not  refuse 

A  proffered  ransom,  which  would  better  serve 

Gypsy  prosperity,  give  him  more  power 

Over  his  tribe,  than  any  fatherhood: 

Nay,  all  the  father  in  him  must  plead  loud 

For  marriage  of  his  daughter  where  she  loved — 

Her  love  being  placed  so  high  and  lustrously. 

The  gypsy  chieftain  had  foreseen  a  price 

That  would  be  paid  him  for  his  daugliter's  dower-^ 

Might  soon  give  signs.     Oh,  all  his  purpose  laj 


THE    SPA'XISH    GYPSY.  391 

Fiice  upward.     Silva  liere  felt  strong,  and  smiled. 

What  could  a  Spanish  noble  not  command? 

He  only  helped  the  Queen,  because  he  chose; 

Could  war  on  Spaniards,  and  could  spare  the  Moor; 

Buy  justice,  or  defeat  it — if  he  would: 

^yas  loyal,  not  from  weakness  but  from  strength 

Of  high  resolve  to  use  his  birthright  well. 

For  nobles  too  are  gods,  like  Emperors, 

Accept  perforce  their  own  divinity. 

And  wonder  at  the  virtue  of  their  touch. 

Till  obstinate  resistance  shakes  their  creed. 

Shattering  that  self  whose  Avholeness  is  not  rounded 

Save  in  the  plastic  souls  of  other  men. 

Don  Silva  has  been  suckled  in  that  creed 

(A  high-tauglit  speculative  noble  else), 

Held  it  absurd  as  foolish  argument 

If  any  failed  in  deference,  was  too  proud 

Not  to  be  courteous  to  so  poor  a  knave 

As  one  who  knew  not  necessary  trutlis 

Of  birth  and  dues  of  rank;  but  cross  his  will. 

The  miracle-working  will,  his  rage  leaped  out 

As  by  a  right  divine  to  rage  more  fatal 

Than  a  mere  mortal  man's.     And  now  that  will 

Had  met  a  stronger  adversary — strong 

As  awful  ghosts  are  whom  we  cannot  touch, 

AVhile  they  clutch  us,  subtly  as  poisoned  air. 

In  deep-laid  fibres  of  inherited  fear 

That  lie  below  all  courage. 

Silva  said, 
"  She  is  not  lost  to  me,  might  still  be  mine 
But  for  the  Inquisition — the  dire  hand 
That  waits  to  chitch  her  Avith  a  hideous  grasp 
Not  passionate,  liuman,  living,  but  a  grasp 
As  in  the  deatli-throe  wlien  the  liuman  soul 
Departs  and  leaves  force  unrelenting,  locked. 
Not  to  be  loosened  save  by  slow  decay 
That  frets  the  universe.    'Father  Isidor 
Has  willed  it  so:  his  phial  dropped  the  oil 
To  catch  the  air-borne  motes  of  idle  slander; 
He  fed  the  fascinated  gaze  that  clung 
Round  all  her  movements,  frank  as  growths  of  spring, 
With  the  new  hateful  interest  of  suspicion. 
What  barrier  is  this  Gypsy?  a  mere  gate 
I'll  find  the  kev  for.     The  one  barrier, 
The  tightening  cord  tluit  winds  al)0ut  my  limbs, 


393  THE    SPANISH    GYPSY. 

Is  tliis  kind  uncle,  this  imperious  saint, 

He  who  will  save  me,  guard  me  from  myself. 

And  he  can  work  his  will:  I  have  no  help 

Save  i-eptile  secrecy,  and  no  revenge 

Save  that  I  «'/?/  do  what  he  schemes  to  hinder. 

Ay,  secrecy,  and  disobedience — these 

No  tyranny  can  master.     Disobey! 

You  may  divide  the  universe  with  God, 

Keeping  your  will  unbent,  and  hold  a  world 

Where  he  is  not  supreme.     The  Prior  shall  know  it! 

His  will  shall  breed  resistance:  he  shall  do 

The  thing  he  would  not,  further  what  he  hates 

By  hardening  my  resolve." 

But  ^neath  this  speech — 
Defiant,  hectoring,  the  more  passionate  voice 
Of  many-blended  consciousness — there  breathed 
Murmurs  of  doubt,  the  weakness  of  a  self 
That  is  not  one;  denies  and  yet  believes; 
Protests  with  passion,   ''This  is  natural" — 
Yet  owns  the  other  still  were  truer,  better. 
Could  nature  follow  it:  a  self  disturbed 
By  budding  growths  of  reason  premature 
That  breed  disease.     With  all  liis  outflung  rage 
Silva  half  shrank  before  the  steadfast  man 
Whose  life  was  one  compacted  whole,  a  realm 
Where  the  rule  clianged  not,  and  the  law  was  strong. 
Then  that  reluctant  homage  stirred  new  hate. 
And  gave  rebellion  an  intenser  will. 

But  soon  this  inward  strife  the  slow-paced  hours 

Slackened ;  and  the  soul  sank  with  hunger-pangs. 

Hunger  of  love.     Debate  was  sv/ept  right  down 

By  certainty  of  loss  intolerable. 

A  little  loss!  only  a  dark-tressed  maid 

Who  had  no  heritage  save  her  beauteous  being! 

But  in  the  candor  of  her  virgin  eyes 

Saying,  I  love;  and  in* the  mystic  charm 

Of  her  dear  presence,  Silva  found  a  heaven 

Where  faith  and  hope  were  drowned  as  stars  in  day. 

Fedalma  tliere,  each  momentary  Now 

Seemed  a  whole  blest  existence,  a  full  cup 

That,  flowing  over,  asked  no  pouring  hand 

From  past  to  future.     All  the  world  was  hers. 

Splendor  Avas  but  the  herald  trumpet-note 


THE    SPANISH   GYPSY.  393 

Of  her  imperial  coining;  penury 

Vanished  before  her  as  before  a  gem, 

The  pledge  of  treasuries.     Fedalma  there, 

He  thought  all  loveliness  was  lovelier, 

She  crowning  it;  all  goodness  credible. 

Because  of  that  great  trust  her  goodness  bred. 

For  the  strong  current  of  the  passionate  love 

"Which  urged  his  life  tow'rd  hers,  like  urgent  floods 

That  hurry  through  the  various-mingled  earth. 

Carried  within  its  stream  all  qualities 

Of  what  it  penetrated,  and  made  love 

Only  another  name,  as  Silva  was. 

For  the  whole  man  that  breathed  within  his  frame. 

And  she  was  gone.     Well,  goddesses  will  go; 

But  for  a  noble  there  were  mortals  left 

Shaped  just  like  goddesses — 0  hateful  sweet! 

0  impudent  pleasure  that  should  dare  to  front 

With  vulgar  visage  memories  divine! 

The  noble's  birthright  of  miraculous  will 

Turning  /  would  to  must  he,  spurning  all 

Offered  as  substitute  for  what  it  chose, 

Tiglitcned  and  fixed  in  strain  irrevocable 

The  passionate  selection  of  that  love 

Which  came  not  first  but  as  all-conquering  last. 

Great  Love  has  many  attributes,  and  shrines 

For  varied  worsliip,  but  his  force  divine 

Shows  most  its  many-named  fullness  in  the  man 

Whoso  nature  multitudinously  mixed — 

Each  ardent  impulse  grappling  Avith  a  thought — 

Eesists  all  easy  gladness,  all  content 

Save  mystic  rapture,  where  the  questioning  soul 

Flooded  with  consciousness  of  good  that  is 

Finds  life  one  bounteous  answer.     So  it  was 

In  Silva's  nature.  Love  had  mastery  there, 

Not  as  a  holiday  ruler,  but  as  one 

Who  quells  a  tumult  in  a  day  of  dread, 

A  welcomed  despot. 

0  all  comforters. 
All  soothing  things  that  bring  mild  ecstasy. 
Came  Avith  her  coming,  in  her  presence  lived. 
Spring  afternoons,  when  delicate  shadows  fall 
Penciled  upon  the  grass;  high  summer  morns 
When  white  light  ruins  upon  the  quiet  sea 
And  corn-nelds  flush  with  ripeness;  odors  soft- 
Dumb  vagrant  bliss  that  seems  to  seek  a  home 


394  THE   SPANISH   GYPSY. 

And  find  ifc  deep  within,  ^mid  stirrings  vague 

Of  far-oii  moments  when  our  life  was  fresh; 

All  sweetly-tempered  music,  gentle  change 

Of  sound,  form,  color,  as  on  wide  lagoons 

At  sunset  when  from  black  far-floating  prows 

Comes  a  clear  wafted  song;  all  exquisite  joy 

Of  a  subdued  desire,  like  some  strong  stream 

Made  placid  in  the  fullness  of  a  lake — 

All  came  with  her  sweet  presence,  for  she  brought 

The  love  supreme  which  gathers  to  its  realm 

All  powers  of  loving.     Subtle  nature's  hand 

Waked  with  a  touch  the  far-linked  harmonies 

In  her  own  manifold  work.     Fedalma  there. 

Fastidiousness  became  the  prelude  fine 

For  full  contentment;  and  young  melancholy. 

Lost  for  its  origin,  seemed  but  the  pain 

Of  waiting  for  that  perfect  happiness. 

The  happiness  was  gone! 

He  sat  alone, 
Hating  companionship  that  was  not  hers; 
Felt  bruised  with  hopeless  longing;  drank,  as  wine, 
Illusions  of  Avhat  had  been,  would  have  been; 
Weary  with  anger  and  a  strained  resolve. 
Sought  passive  happiness  in  waking  dreams. 
It  has  been  so  with  rulers,  emperors, 
Nay,  sages  who  held  secrets  of  great  Time, 
Sharing  his  hoary  and  beneficent  life — 
Men  Avho  sat  throned  among  the  multitudes — 
They  have  sore  sickened  at  the  loss  of  one. 
Silva  sat  lonely  in  her  chamber,  leaned 
Where  she  had  leaned,  to  feel  the  evening  breath 
Shed  from  the  orange  trees;  when  suddenly 
His  grief  was  echoed  in  a  sad  young  voice 
Far  and  yet  near,  brought  by  aerial  wings. 

The  uiorld  is  great;  the  birds  all  Jl^  from  me. 
The  stars  are  golden  fruit  upon  a  tree 
All  out  of  reach;  my  little  sister  toent, 
And  I  am  lonely. 

The  ivorld  is  great;  I  tried  to  mount  the  hill 
Above  the  pines,  where  the  light  lies  so  still, 
-But  it  rose  higher;  little  Lisa  ivent, 
t%d  J  am  lonely. 


THE    SPANISH    GYPSY.  395 

The  iLwrlcl  is  great;  the  wind  comes  rushing  hy, 
I  loonder  where  it  comes  from;  sea-hirds  cry 
And  hurt  my  heart;  my  little  sister  went, 
And  I  am.  lonely. 

The  world  is  great;  the  j^eople  laugh  and  talk. 
And  make  loud  holiday;  hoio  fast  they  loalkl 
I'm  lame,  they  push  me;  little  Lisa  went, 
And  I  am  lonely, 

'Twas  Pablo,  like  the  wounded  spirit  of  song 

Pouring  melodious  pain  to  cheat  the  hour 

For  idle  soldiers  in  the  castle  court. 

Dreamily  Silva  heard  and  hardly  felt 

The  song  was  outward,  rather  felt  it  part 

Of  his  own  aching,  like  the  lingering  day. 

Or  slow  and  mournful  cadence  of  the  bell. 

But  when  the  voice  had  ceased  he  longed  for  it. 

And  fretted  at  the  pause,  as  memory  frets 

When  words  that  made  its  body  fall  away 

And  leave  it  yearning  dumbly.     Silva  then 

Bethought  him  whence  the  voice  came,  framed  perforce 

Some  outward  image  of  a  life  not  his 

That  made  a  sorrowful  center  to  the  world: 

A  boy  lame,  melancholy-eyed,  who  bore 

A  viol — yes,  that  very  child  he  saw 

This  morning  eating  roots  by  the  gateway — saw 

As  one  fresh-ruined  sees  and  spells  a  name 

And  knows  not  what  he  does,  3'et  finds  it  writ 

Full  in  the  inner  record.     Hark,  again! 

The  voice  and  viol.     Silva  called  his  thought 

To  guide  his  ear  and  track  the  traveling  souna. 

0  bird  that  used  to  p)ress 
Thy  head  against  my  cheek 
With  touch  that  seemed  to  speak 

And  ask  a  fender  "yes" — 

Ay  de  mi,  my  bird! 

0  tender  downy  breast 

And  warmly  beating  heart, 

That  beating  seemed  apart 
Of  me  who  aavp.  /'  m^-'- 

Ay  ac  mi,  my  bird! 


39G  THE    SPA]SriSH    GYPSY. 

The  western  court!     The  singer  might  be  seen 
From  the  npper  gallery:  quick  the  Duke  was  there 
Looking  upon  the  court  as  on  a  stage. 
Men  eased  of  armor,  stretched  upon  the  ground, 
Gambling  by  snatches;  shepherds  from  the  hills 
Who   brought  their  bleating   friends   for  slaughter; 

grooms 
Shouldering  loose  harness;  leather-aproned  smiths. 
Traders  with  wares,  green-suited  serving-men. 
Made  a  round  audience;  and  in  their  midst 
Stood  little  Pablo,  pouring  forth  his  song. 
Just  as  the  Duke  had  pictured.     But  the  song 
Was  strangely  'companied  by  Roldan's  play 
With  the  swift  gleaming  balls,  and  now  was  crushed 
By  peals  of  laughter  at  grave  Annibal, 
Who  carrying  stick  and  purse  o'erturned  the  pence. 
Making  mistake  by  rule,     Silva  had  thought 
To  melt  hard  bitter  grief  by  fellowship 
With  the  world-sorrow  trembling  in  his  ear 
In  Pablo's  voice;  had  meant  to  give  command 
For  the  boy's  presence;  but  this  company. 
This  mountebank  and  monkey,  must  be — stay! 
Not  be  excepted — must  be  ordered  too 
Into  his  private  presence;  they  had  brought 
Suggestion  of  a  ready  shapen  tool 
To  cut  a  path  between  his  helj^less  wish 
And  what  it  imaged.     A  ready  shapen  tool! 
A  spy,  an  envoy  whom  he  might  dispatch 
In  unsuspected  secrecy,  to  find 
The  Gypsies'  refuge  so  that  none  beside 
Might  learn  it.     And  this  juggler  could  be  bribed. 
Would  have  no  fear  of  Moors — for  who  would  kill 
Dancers  and  monkeys? — could  pretend  a  journey 
Back  to  his  home,  leaving  his  boy  the  while 
To  please  the  Duke  with  song.  Without  such  chance— 
An  envoy  cheap  and  secret  as  a  mole 
Who  could  go  scatlieless,  coriie  back  for  his  pay 
And  vanish  straight,  tied  by  no  neighborhood — 
Without  such  chance  as  this  poor  juggler  brought. 
Finding  Fedalma  was  betraying  her. 

Short  interval  betwixt  the  thought  and  deed. 
Eoldan  was  called  to  private  audience 
With  Annibal  and  Pablo.     All  the  world 
(By  v/hich  I  mean  the  score  or  two  who  heard^ 


THE   SPAJflSH   GYPSY.  397 

Shrugged  hi gli  their  shoulders,  and  supposed  the  Duke 

Would  fain  beguile  the  evening  and  replace 

His  lacking  happiness,  as  was  the  right 

Of  nobles,  wlio  could  pay  for  any  cure. 

And  v/ore  naught  broken,  save  a  broken  limb. 

In  truth,  at  first,  the  Duke  bade  Pablo  sing, 

But,  while  he  sang,  called  Eoldan  wide  apart. 

And  told  him  of  a  mission  secret,  brief — 

A  quest  which  well  performed  might  earn  much  gold. 

But,  if  betrayed,  another  sort  of  pay. 

Eoldan  was  ready;  ''wished  above  all  for  gold 

And  never  wished  to  speak;  had  worked  enough 

At  wagging  his  old  tongue  and  chiming  jokes; 

Thought  it  was  others'  turn  to  play  the  fool. 

Give  him  but  pence  enough,  no  rabbit,  sirs, 

Would  eat  and  stare  and  be  more  dumb  than  he. 

Give  him  his  orders.'' 

They  were  given  straight; 
Gold  for  the  journey  and  to  buy  a  mule 
Outside  the  gates  through  which  he  was  to  pass 
Afoot  and  carelessly.     The  boy  would  stay 
Within  the  castle,  at  tlie  Duke's  command, 
And  must  have  naught  but  ignorance  to  betray 
For  threats  or  coaxing.     Once  the  quest  performed. 
The  news  delivered  with  some  pledge  of  truth 
Safe  to  the  Duke,  the  juggler  should  go  forth, 
A  fortune  in  his  girdle,  take  his  boy 
And  settle  firm  as  any  planted  tree 
In  fair  Valencia,  never  more  to  roam. 
''Good!  good!  most  worthy  of  a  great  hidalgo! 
And  Eoldan  was  the  man!     But  Annibal — 
A  monkey  like  no  other,  thougli  morose 
In  private  character,  yet  full  of  tricks — 
'Twere  hard  to  carry  liim,  yet  harder  still 
To  leave  the  boy  and  him  in  company 
And  free  to  slip  away.     The  boy  was  wild 
And  shy  as  mountain  kid;  once  liid  himself 
And  tried  to  run  away;  and  Annibal, 
Who  always  took  the  lad's  side  (he  was  small. 
And  tliey  were  nearer  of  a  size,  and,  sirs. 
Your  monkey  has  a  spite  against  us  men 
For  being  bigger) — Annibal  went  too. 
Would  hardly  know  himself,  were  he  to  lose 
Both  boy  and  monkey— and  'twas  property. 
The  trouble  he  had  put  in  Annibal. 


398  THE    tiPAJSriSli    GYPSY. 

He  didn't  choose  another  man  should  beat 

His  boy  and  monkey.     If  they  ran  away 

Some  man  would  snap  them  up,  and  square  himself 

And  say  they  were  his  goods — he'd  taught  them — no! 

He  Roidan  had  no  mind  another  man 

Should  fatten  by  his  monkey,  and  the  boy 

Should  not  be  kicked  by  any  pair  of  sticks 

Calling  himself  a  juggler " 

But  the  Duke, 
Tired  of  that  hammering,  signed  that  it  should  cease; 
Bade  Roldan  quit  all  fears — the  boy  and  ape 
Should  be  safe  lodged  in  Abderahman's  tower. 
In  keeping  of  the  great  physician  there, 
The  Duke's  most  special  confidant  and  friend, 
One  skilled  in  taming  brutes,  and  always  kind. 
The  Duke  himself  this  eve  would  see  them  lodged. 
Roldan  must  go — spend  710  more  words — but  go. 

TJie  Astrologer' s  Study. 

A  room  high  up  in  Abderahman's  tower, 

A  window  opeii  to  the  still  warm  eve, 

And  the  bright  disc  of  royal  Jupiter. 

Lamps  burning  low  make  little  atmospheres 

Of  light  amid  the  dimness;  here  and  there 

Show  books  and  phials,  stones  and  instruments. 

In  carved  dark-oaken  chair,  unpillowed,  sleeps 

Right  in  the  rays  of  Jupiter  a  small  man. 

In  skull-cap  bordered  close  with  crisj)  gray  curls. 

And  loose  black  gown  showing  a  neck  and  breast 

Protected  by  a  dim-green  amulet; 

Pale-faced,  with  finest  nostril  wont  to  breathe 

Ethereal  passion  in  a  world  of  thought; 

Eye-brows  jet-black  and  firm,  yet  delicate; 

Beard  scant  and  grizzled;  mouth  shut  firm,  with  curves 

So  subtly  turned  to  meanings  exquisite. 

You  seem  to  read  them  as  you  read  a  word 

Full-voweled,  long-descended,  pregnant — rich 

With  legacies  from  long,  laborious  lives. 

Close  by  him,  like  a  genius  of  sleep, 

Purs  the  gray  cat,  bridling,  with  snowy  breast. 

A  loud  knock.     "Forward I"  in  clear  vocal  ring. 

Enter  the  Duke,  Pablo,  and  Annibal 

Exit  the  cat,  retreating  toward_the  dark. 


the  spanish  gypsy.  399 

Don  Silva. 
You  slept,  Sephardo.     I  am  come  too  soon. 

Sephardo. 

Nay,  my  lord,  it  was  I  who  slept  too  long. 
I  go  to  court  among  the  stars  to-night, 
So  bathed  my  soul  beforehand  in  deep  sleep. 
But  who  are  these? 

Don  Silva. 

Small  guests,  for  whom  I  ask 
Your  hospitality.     Their  owner  comes 
Some  short  time  hence  to  claim  them.     I  am  pledged 
To  keep  them  safely;  so  I  bring  them  you. 
Trusting  your  friendship  for  small  animals. 

Sephardo. 
Yea,  am  not  I  too  a  small  animal? 

Don  Silva. 

I  shall  be  much  beholden  to  your  love 
If  you  will  be  their  guardian.     I  can  trust 
No  other  man  so  well  as  you.     The  boy 
Will  please  you  with  his  singing,  touches  too 
The  viol  wondrously. 

Sephardo. 

They  are  welcome  both. 
Their  names  are ? 

Don  Silva. 

Pablo,  this — this  Annibal, 
And  yet,  I  hope,  no  warrior. 

Sephardo. 

We'll  make  peace. 
Come,  Pablo,  let  us  loosen  our  friend's  chain. 
Deign  you,  my  lord,  to  sit.     Here  Pablo,  thou — 
Close  to  my  chair.     Now  Annibal  shall  choose. 

[The  cautious  monkey,  in  a  Moorish  dress, 
A  tunic  white,  turban  and  scimiter. 


400  THE    SPANISH    GYPSY. 

Wears  these  stage  garments,  nay,  his  very  flesh 

With  silent  protest;  keeps  a  neutral  air 

As  aiming  at  a  metaphysic  state 

'Twixt  "is"  and  "  is  not";  lets  his  chain  be  loosed 

By  sage  Sephardo's  hands,  sits  still  at  first. 

Then  trembles  out  of  his  neutrality, 

Looks  up  and  leaps  into  Sephardo's  lap. 

And  chatters  fortli  his  agitated  soul. 

Turning  to  peep  at  Pablo  on  the  floor.] 

Sephardo. 
See,  he  declares  we  are  at  amity! 

Don  Silva. 
No  brother  sage  had  read  your  nature  faster. 

Sephardo. 

Why,  so  he  is  a  brother  sage.     Man  thinks 
Brutes  have  no  wisdom,  since  they  know  not  his: 
Can  we  divine  their  world? — tlie  hidden  life 
That  mirrors  us  as  hideous  shapeless  power. 
Cruel  supremacy  of  sharp-edged  death,  » 

Or  fate  that  leaves  a  bleeding  mother  robbed? 
Oh,  they  have  long  tradition  and  swift  speech, 
Can  tell  Avith  touches  and  sharp  darting  cries 
Whole  histories  of  timid  races  taught 
To  breathe  in  terror  by  red-handed  man. 

Don  Silva.. 

Ah,  you  denounce  my  sport  with  hawk  and  hound. 

I  would  not  have  the  angel  Gabriel 

As  hard  as  you  in  noting  down  my  sins. 

Sephardo. 

Nay,  they  are  virtues  for  you  warriors- 
Hawking  and  hunting!     You  are  merciful 
When  you  leave  killing  men  to  kill  the  brutes. 
But,  for  the  point  of  wisdom,  I  would  choose 
To  know  the  mind  that  stirs  between  the  wings 
Of  bees  and  building  wasjjs,  or  fills  the  woods 
With  myriad  murmurs  of  responsive  sense 
And  true-aimed  impulse,  rather  than  to  know 
The  thoughts  of  warriors. 


the  spanish  gypsy.  401 

Don  Silva. 

Yet  they  are  warriors  too — 
Your  animals.     Your  judgment  limj^s,  Sepliardo: 
Death  is  tlie  king  of  this  world;  'tis  his  park 
Where  he  breeds  life  to  feed  him.     Cries  of  ])ain 
Are  music  for  his  banquet;  and  the  masque — 
The  last  grand  masque  for  his  diversion,  is 
The  Holy  Inquisition. 

Sephaedo. 

Ay,  anon 
I  may  chime  in  with  you.     But  not  the  less 
My  judgment  has  firm  feet.     Though  death  were  king, 
And  cruelty  his  right-hand  minister, 
Pity  insurgent  in  some  human  breasts 
Makes  spiritual  empire,  reigns  supreme 
As  persecuted  faith  in  faithful  hearts. 
Your  small  jDhysician,  weighing  ninety  pounds, 
A  petty  morsel  for  a  healthy  shurk, 
Will  worship  mercy  throned  within  his  soul 
Though  all  the  luminous  angels  of  the  stars 
Burst  into  cruel  chorus  on  his  ear. 
Singing,  "We  know  no  mercy."     He  Avould  cry, 
"  I  know  it "  still,  and  soothe  the  frightened  bird 
And  feed  the  child  a-hungered,  walk  abreast 
Of  persecuted  men,  and  keep  most  hate 
For  rational  torturers.     There  I  stand  firm. 
But  you  are  bitter,  and  my  speech  rolls  on 
Out  of  your  note. 

DoK  Silva. 

No,  no,  I  follow  you. 
I  too  have  that  within  which  I  will  worship 

In  spite  of .     Yes,  Sephardo,  I  am  bitter. 

I  need  your  counsel,  foresight,  all  your  aid. 
Lay  these  small  guests  to  bed,  then  we  will  talk, 

Sephardo. 

See,  they  are  sleeping  now.     The  boy  has  made 
My  leg  his  pillow.     For  my  brother  sage. 
He'll  never  heed  us;  he  knit  long  ago 
A  sound  ape-systcra,  wherein  men  are  brutes 
26 


403  THE    SPANISH    GYPSY. 

Emitting  doubtful  noises.     Pray,  my  lord, 
Unlade  what  burdens  you :  my  ear  and  hand 
4re  servants  of  a  heart  much  bound  to  you. 

Don  Silva. 

Yes,  yours  is  love  that  roots  in  gifts  bestowed 
By  you  on  others,  and  will  thrive  the  more 
The  more  it  gives.     I  have  a  double  want: 
First  a  confessor — not  a  Catholic; 
A  heart  without  a  livery — naked  manhood. 

Sephardo. 

My  lord,  I  will  be  frank;  there's  no  such  thing 

As  naked  manhood.     If  the  stars  look  down 

On  any  mortal  of  our  shape,  whose  strength 

Is  to  judge  all  things  witliout  preference, 

He  is  a  monster,  not  a  faithful  man. 

While  my  heart  beats,  it  shall  wear  livery — 

My  peoj)le's  livery,  whose  yellow  badge 

Marks  them  for  Christian  scorn.     I  will  not  say 

Man  is  first  man  to  me,  then  Jew  or  Gentile: 

That  suits  the  rich  marranos;  but  to  me 

My  father  is  first  father  and  then  man. 

So  much  for  frankness'  sake.     But  let  that  pass, 

'Tis  true  at  least,  I  am  no  Catholic 

But  Salomo  Sejjhardo,  a  born  Jew, 

Willing  to  serve  Don  Silva. 

Don  Silva. 

Oft  you  sing 
Another  strain,  and  melt  distinctions  down 
As  no  more  real  than  the  wall  of  dark 
Seen  by  small  fishes'  eyes,  that  pierce  a  span 
In  the  wide  ocean.     Now  you  league  yourself 
To  hem  me,  hold  me  prisoner  in  bonds 
Made,  say  you — how? — by  God  or  Demiurge, 
By  spirit  or  flesh — I  care  not!     Love  was  made 
Stronger  than  bonds,  and  where  they  press  must  break 

them. 
I  came  to  you  that  I  might  breathe  at  large. 
And  now  you  stifle  me  with  talk  of  birth. 
Of  race  and  livery.     Yet  you  knew  Fedalma. 


THE   SPANISH   GYPSY.  403 

She  was  your  friend,  Sephardo.     And  you  know 
She  is  gone  from  me — know  the  hounds  are  loosed 
To  dog  me  if  I  seek  her. 

Sephardo. 

Yes,  I  know. 
Forgive  me  that  I  used  untimely  speech, 
Pressing  a  bruise.     I  loved  her  well,  my  lord: 
A  woman  mixed  of  such  fine  elements 
That  were  all  virtue  and  religion  dead 
She'd  make  them  newly,  being  what  she  was. 

Don  Silva. 

Was  ?  say  not  was,  Sephardo !     She  still  lives — 

Is,  and  is  mine;  and  I  will  not  renounce 

What  heaven,  nay,  what  she  gave  me.     I  will  sin, 

If  sin  I  must,  to  win  my  life  again. 

The  fault  lie  with  those  powers  who  have  embroiled 

The  world  in  hopeless  conflict,  where  all  truth 

Fights  manacled  with  falsehood,  and  all  good 

Makes  but  one  palpitating  life  with  ill. 

(Don  Silva  pauses.     Sephakdo  is  silent.) 

Sephardo,  speak!  am  I  not  justified? 

You  taught  my  mind  to  use  the  wing  that  soars 

Above  the  petty  fences  of  the  herd: 

Now,  when  I  heed  your  doctrine,  you  are  dumb. 

Sephakdo. 

Patience!     Hidalgos  want  interpreters 
Of  untold  dreams  and  riddles;  they  insist 
On  dateless  horoscopes,  on  formulas 
To  raise  a  possible  spirit,  nowhere  named. 
Science  must  be  their  wishing-cap;  the  stars 
Speak  plainer  for  high  largesse.     No,  my  lord! 
I  cannot  counsel  you  to  unknown  deeds. 
This  much  I  can  divine:  you  wish  to  find 
Her  whom  you  love — to  make  a  secret  search. 

Don  Silva. 

That  is  begun  already:  a  messenger 
Unknown  to  all  has  been  dispatched  this  night. 


404  THE   SPANISH    GYPSY. 

But  forecast  must  be  used,  a  plan  devised, 
Eeady  for  service  when  my  scout  returns. 
Bringing  the  invisible  thread  to  guide  my  steps 
Toward  that  lost  self  my  life  is  aching  with. 
Sephardo,  I  will  go:  and  I  must  go 
Unseen  by  all  save  you;  though,  at  our  need. 
We  may  trust  Alvar. 

Sephaedo. 

A  grave  task,  my  lord. 
Have  you  a  shapen  purpose,  or  mere  will 
That  sees  the  end  alone  and  not  the  means? 
Resolve  will  melt  no  rocks. 

Don  Silva. 

But  it  can  scale  them. 
This  fortress  has  two  private  issues:  one, 
Which  served  the  gypsies'  flight  to  me  is  closed; 
Our  bands  must  watch  the  outlet,  now  betra3'ed 
To  cunning  enemies.     Remains  one  other. 
Known  to  no  man  save  me;  a  secret  left 
As  heirloom  in  our  house;  a  secret  safe 
Even  from  him — From  Father  Isidor. 
^Tis  he  who  forces  me  to  use  it — he;. 
All's  virtue  that  cheats  bloodhounds.    Hear,  Sephardo. 
Given,  my  scout  returns,  and  brings  me  news 
I  can  straight  act  on,  I  shall  want  your  aid. 
The  issue  lies  below  this  tower,  your  fastness. 
Where,  by  my  charter,  you  rule  absolute. 
I  shall  feign  illness;  you  with  mystic  air 
Must  speak  of  treatment  asking  vigilance 
(Kay  lam  ill — my  life  has  half  ebbed  out).         « 
I  shall  be  whimsical,  devolve  command 
On  Don  Diego,  speak  of  poisoning, 
Insist  on  being  lodged  witliin  this  tower. 
And  rid  myself  of  tendance  save  from  you 
And  perhaps  from  Alvar.     So  I  shall  escape 
Unseen  by  spies,  shall  win  the  days  I  need 
To  ransom  her  and  have  her  safe  enshrined. 
No  matter,  were  my  flight  disclosed  at  last; 
I  shall  come  back  as  from  a  duel  fought 
Which  no  man  can  undo.     Now  you  know  all. 
Say,  can  I  count  on  you? 


THE   SPANISH   GYPSY.  405 

SSPHARDO. 

For  faithfulness 
In  aught  that  I  may  promise,  yes,  my  lord. 
But — for  a  pledge  of  faithfulness — this  warning. 
I  will  betray  naught  for  your  personal  harm; 
I  love  you.     But  note  this — I  am  a  Jew; 
And  while  the  Christian  persecutes  my  race, 
I'll  turn  at  need  even  tlie  Christian's  "trust 
Into  a  weapon  and  a  shield  for  Jews. 
Shall  Cruelty  crowned — wielding  the  savage  force 
Of  multitudes,  and  calling  savageness  God 
Who  gives  it  victory — upbraid  deceit 
And  ask  for  faithfulness?     I  love  you  well. 
You  are  my  friend.     But  yet  you  are  a  Christian, 
AVhose  birth  has  bound  you  to  the  Catholic  kings. 
There  may  come  moments  when  to  share  my  joy 
Would  make  you  traitor,  when  to  share  your  grief 
Would  make  me  other  than  a  Jew 

Don  Silva. 

What  need 
To  urge  that  now,  Sephardo?    I  am  one 
Of  many  Spanish  nobles  who  detest 
The  roaring  bigotry  of  the  herd,  would  fain 
Dash  from  the  lips  of  king  and  queen  the  cup 
Filled  with  besotting  venom,  half  infused 
By  avarice  and  half  by  priests.     And  now — 
Now  when  the  cruelty  you  flout  me  with 
Pierces  me  too  in  the  apple  of  my  e^'^e, 
Now  when  my  kinship  scorches  me  like  hate 
Flashed  from  a  mother's  eye,  you  choose  this  time 
To  talk  of  birth  as  of  inherited  rage 
Deep-clown,  volcanic,  fatal,  bursting  forth 
From  under  Imrd-taught  reason?     Wondrous  friend! 
My  uncle  Isidor's  echo,  mocking  me. 
From  the  op})osing  quarter  of  the  heavens. 
With  iteration  of  the  thing  I  know. 
That  I'm  a  Christum  knight  and  Spanish  duke! 
The  consequence?     Why,  that  I  knoAv.     It  lies 
In  my  own  hands  and  not  on  raven  tongues. 
The  knight  and  noble  shall  not  wear  the  chain 
Of  false-linked  thoughts  in  brains  of  other  men. 
What  question  was  there  'twixt  us  two,  of  aught 
That  makes  division?    AMicn  I  come  to  you 
I  come  for  other  doctrine  than  the  Prior's. 


406  the  spanish  gypsy. 

Sephardo. 

My  lord,  you  are  o'erwrought  by  pain.     My  words. 

That  carried  innocent  meaning,  do  but  float 

Like  little  emptied  cups  upon  the  flood 

Your  mind  brings  witli  it.     I  but  answered  you 

With  regular  proviso,  such  as  stands 

In  testaments  and  charters,  to  forefend 

A  possible  case  Avhich  none  deem  likelihood; 

Just  turned  my  sleeve,  and  pointed  to  the  brand 

Of  brotherhood  that  limits  every  pledge. 

Superfluous  nicety — the  student's  trick. 

Who  will  not  drink  until  lie  can  define 

What  water  is  and  is  not.     But  enough. 

My  will  to  serve  you  now  knows  no  division 

Save  the  alternate  beat  of  love  and  fear. 

There's  danger  in  this  quest — name,  honor,  life — 

My  lord,  the  stake  is  great,  and  are  you  sure 

Don  Silva. 

No,  I  am  sure  of  naught  but  this,  Sephardo, 
That  I  will  go.     Prudence  is  but  conceit 
Hoodwinked  by  ignorance.     There's  naught  exists 
That  is  not  dangerous  and  holds  not  death 
For  souls  or  bodies.     Prudence  turns  its  helm 
To  flee  the  storm  and  lands  'mid  pestilence. 
Wisdom  would  end  by  throwing  dice  with  folly 
But  for  dire  passion  which  alone  makes  choice. 
And  I  have  chosen  as  the  lion  robbed 
Chooses  to  turn  upon  the  ravisher. 
If  love  were  slack,  the  Prior's  imperious  will 
Would  move  it  to  outmatch  him.     But,  Sephardo, 
Were  all  else  mute,  all  passive  as  sea-calms, 
My  soul  is  one  great  hunger — I  must  see  her. 
Now  you  are  smiling.     Oh,  you  merciful  men 
Pick  up  coarse  griefs  and  fling  them  in  the  face 
Of  us  whom  life  with  long  descent  has  trained 
To  subtler  pains,  mocking  your  ready  balms. 
You  smile  at  my  soul's  hunger. 

Sephardo. 

Science  smiles 
And  sways  our  lips  in  spite  of  us,  my  lord, 
When  thought  weds  fact — when  maiden  prophecy 
Waiting,  believing,  sees  the  bridal  torch. 


THE   SPAiflSH   GYPSY.  407 

I  use  not  vulgar  measures  for  your  grief. 
My  pity  keeps  uo  cruel  feasts;  but  thought 
Has  joys  apart,  even  in  blackest  woe. 
And  seizing  some  fine  thread  of  verity 
Knows  momentary  godhead. 

Bon  Silva. 

And  your  thought? 

Sephardo. 

Seized  on  the  close  agreement  of  your  words 
With  what  is  written  in  your  horoscope. 

Don"  Silva. 
Reach  it  me  now. 

Sephardo. 
By  your  leave,  Annibal. 

{He  places  Astitibal  on  Pablo's  lap  and  rises.  The  boy 
moves  without  waking,  and  his  head  falls  on  the  opposite 
side.  Sephardo  fetches  a  cushion  and  laijs  Pablo's 
head  ge7itly  down  upon  it,  then  goes  to  reach  the  parch- 
ment from  a  cabinet.  Ani^ibal,  having  ivahed  up  in 
alarm,  shuts  his  eyes  quickly  again  and  pretends  to 
sleep.) 

Don"  Silva. 

I  wish,  by  new  appliance  of  your  skill, 

Heading  afresh  the  records  of  tlic  sky. 
You  could  detect  more  special  augury. 
Such  chance  oft  happens,  for  all  characters 
Must  shrink  or  widen,  as  our  Avine-skins  do. 
For  more  or  less  that  we  can  pour  in  them; 
And  added  years  give  ever  a  new  key 
To  fixed  prediction. 

Sephardo  {returning  with  the  parchment  and  reseating 

himself).  s 

True;  our  growing  thought 
Makes  growing  revelation.     But  demand  not 


408  THE   SPA]SriSH   GYPSY. 

Specific  augury,  as  of  sure  success 

In  meditated  projects,  or  of  ends 

To  be  foreknown  by  peeping  in  G-od^s  scroll. 

I  say — nay,  Ptolemy  said  it,  but  wise  books 

For  half  the  trutlis  they  hold  are  honored  tombs — 

Prediction  is  contingent,  of  effects 

Where  causes  and  concomitants  are  mixed 

To  seeming  wealth  of  possibilities 

Beyond  our  reckoning.     Who  will  pretend 

To  tell  the  adventures  of  each  single  fish 

Within  the  Syrian  Sea?     Sliow  me  a  fish, 

I'll  weigh  him,  tell  his  kind,  what  he  devoured, 

What  would  have  devoured  liim — but  for  one  Bias 

Who  netted  him  instead;  nay,  could  I  tell 

That  had  Bias  missed  him,  he  would  not  have  died 

Of  poisonous  mud,  and  so  made  carrion. 

Swept  off  at  last  by  some  sea-scavenger? 

Don  Silva. 

Ay,  now  you  talk  of  fishes,  you  get  hard. 
I  note  you  merciful  men:  you  can  endure 
Torture  of  fishes  and  hidalgos.     Follows? 

Sephardo. 

By  how  much,  then,  the  fortunes  of  a  man 

Are  made  of  elements  refined  and  mixed 

Beyond  a  tunny's,  what  our  science  tells 

Of  the  star's  influence  hath  contingency 

In  special  issues.     Thus,  the  loadstone  draws. 

Acts  like  a  will  to  make  the  iron  submiss; 

But  garlick  rubbing  it,  that  chief  effect 

Lies  in  suspense;  the  iron  keeps  at  large. 

And  garlick  is  controller  of  the  stone. 

And  so,  my  lord,  your  horoscope  declares 

Not  absolutely  of  your  sequent  lot. 

But,  by  our  lore's  authentic  rules,  sets  forth 

What  gifts,  what  dispositions,  likelihoods 

The  aspect  of  the  heavens  conspired  to  fuse 

With  your  incorporate  soul.     Aught  more  than  this 

Is  vulgar  doctrine.     For  the  ambient, 

Though  a  cause  regnant,  is  not  absolute. 

But  suffers  a  determining  restraint 

From  action  of  the  subject  qualities 

In  proximate  motion. 


thjE  spa.yisa  gypsy.  409 


D0>f    SiLVA. 


Yet  you  smiled  just  now 
At  some  close  fitting  pf  my  horoscope 
With  present  fact — with  this  resolve  of  mine 
To  quit  the  fortress? 

Sephardo. 

Nay,  not  so;  I  smiled. 
Observing  how  the  temper  of  your  soul 
Sealed  long  tradition  of  the  influence  shed 
By  the  heavenly  spheres.     Here  is  your  horoscope: 
The  aspects  of  the  Moon  with  Mars  conjunct. 
Of  Venus  and  the  Sun  with  Saturn,  lord 
Of  the  ascendant  make  symbolic  speech 
Whereto  your  words  gave  running  paraphrase. 

Don  Silva  {impati&ntly). 
What  did  I  say? 

Sephardo. 

You  spoke  as  oft  you  did 
When  I  was  schooling  you  at  Cordova, 
And  lessons  on  the  noun  and  verb  were  drowned 
With  sudden  stream  of  general  debate 
On  things  and  actions.     Always  in  that  stream 
I  saw  tiie  play  of  babbling  currents,  saw 
A  nature  o'er-endowed  with  opposites 
Making  a  self  alternate,  where  each  hour 
Was  critic  of  the  last,  each  mood  too  strong 
For  tolerance  of  its  fellow  in  close  yoke. 
The  ardent  planets  stationed  as  supreme. 
Potent  in  action,  suffer  light  malign 
From  luminaries  large  and  coldly  bright 
Inspiring  meditative  doubt,  which  straight 
Doubts  of  itself,  by  interposing  act 
Of  Jupiter  in  the  fourth  house  fortiaed 
With  pov/er  ancestral.     So,  my  lord,  I  read 
The  changeless  in  the  changing;  so  I  read 
The  constant  action  of  celestial  powers 
Mixed  into  waywardness  of  mortal  men, 
Whereof  no  sage's  eye  can  trace  the  course 
And  see  the  close. 


410  the  spanish  gypsy. 

Don  Silva. 

Fruitful  result,  0  sage! 
Certain  uncertainty. 

Sephardo. 

Yea,  a  result 
Fruitful  as  seeded  earth,  where  certainty 
Would  be  as  barren  as  a  globe  of  gold. 
I  love  you,  and  would  serve  you  well,  my  lord. 
Your  rashness  vindicates  itself  too  much. 
Puts  harness  on  of  cobweb  theory 
While  rushing  like  a  cataract.     Be  warned. 
Eesolve  with  you  is  a  fire-breathing  steed. 
But  it  sees  visions,  and  may  feel  the  air 
Impassable  with  thoughts  that  come  too  late. 
Rising  from  out  the  grave  of  murdered  honor. 
Look  at  your  image  in  your  horoscope: 

{Laying  the  horoscope  before  Don  Silva.) 

You  are  so  mixed,  my  lord,  that  each  to-day 
May  seem  a  maniac  to  its  morrow. 

Don  Silva  [pushmg  aiuay  the  horoscope,  rising  and  turn- 
ing to  look  out  at  the  open  window). 

No! 
No  morrow  e'er  will  say  that  I  am  mad 
Not  to  renounce  her.     Risks!  I  know  them  all. 
I've  dogged  each  lurking,  ambushed  consequence. 
I've  handled  every  chance  to  know  its  shape 
As  blind  men  handle  bolts.     Oh,  I'm  too  sane! 
I  see  the  Prior's  nets.     He  does  my  deed; 
For  he  has  narrowed  all  my  life  to  this — 
That  I  must  find  her  by  some  hidden  means. 

{He  turns  and  stands  close  in  front  of  Sephardo.) 

One  word,  Sephardo — leave  that  horoscope. 
Which  is  iDut  iteration  of  myself. 
And  give  me  promase.     Shall  I  count  on  you 
To  act  upon  my  signal?     Kings  of  Spain 
Like  me  have  found  their  refuge  in  a  Jew, 
And  trusted  in  his  counsel.     You  will  help  me? 

Sephardo. 
Yes,  my  lord,  I  will  help  you.     Israel 


THE    SPANISH   GYPSY.  411 

Is  to  the  nations  as  the  body's  heart: 
Thus  writes  our  poet  Jehuda.     I  will  act 
So  that  no  man  may  ever  say  through  me 
"Your  Israel  is  naught,"  and  make  my  deeds 
The  mud  they  fling  upon  my  brethren. 
I  will  not  fail  you,  save — you  know  the  terms: 
I  am  a  Jew,  and  not  that  infamous  life 
That  takes  on  bastardy,  will  know  no  father. 
So  shrouds  itself  in  the  pale  abstract,  Man. 
You  should  be  sacrificed  to  Israel 
If  Israel  needed  it, 

Dojsr  SiLVA.  , 

I  fear  not  that. 
I  am  no  friend  of  fines  and  banishment, 
Or  flames  that,  fed  on  heretics,  still  gape. 
And  must  have  heretics  made  to  feed  them  still. 
I  take  your  terms,  and  for  the  rest,  your  love 
Will  not  forsake  me. 

Sephardo. 

'Tis  hard  Roman  love, 
That  looks  away  and  stretches  forth  the  sword 
Bared  for  its  master's  breast  to  run  upon. 
But  you  will  have  it  so.     Love  shall  obey. 

(DoN"  SiLVA  tui^ns  to  tlieicindov)  again,  and  is  silent  for  a 
few  momefits,  looting  at  the  sky.) 

Don  Silva. 

See  now,  Sephardo,  you  would  keep  no  faith 
To  smooth  the  path  of  cruelty.     Confess, 
The  deed  I  would  not  do,  save  for  the  strait 
Another  brings  me  to  (quit  my  command. 
Resign  it  for  brief  space,  I  mean  no  more) — 
Were  that  deed  branded,  then  the  brand  should  fix 
On  him  who  urged  me. 

Sephardo. 

Will  it,  though,  my  lord? 

Don  Silva. 
I  speak  not  of  the  fact  but  of  the  right. 


412  THE    SPANISH    GYPSY. 


Sephardo. 


My  lord,  you  said  but  now  you  were  resolved*. 
Question  not  if  the  world  will  be  unjust 
Branding  your  deed.     If  conscience  has  two  courts 
With  differing  verdicts,  where  shall  lie  the  appeal? 
Our  law  must  be  without  us  or  Avithin. 
The  Highest  speaks  through  all  our  people's  voice. 
Custom,  tradition,  and  old  sanctities; 
Or  he  reveals  himself  by  new  decrees 
Of  inward  certitude. 

DOK   SiLVA. 

My  love  for  her 
Makes  highest  law,  must  be  the  voice  of  God. 

Sephardo. 

I  thought,  but  now,  you  seemed  to  make  excuse, 
And  plead  as  in  some  court  where  Spanish  knights 
Are  tried  by  other  laws  than  those  of  love. 

Don  Silva. 

'Twas  momentary.     I  shall  dare  it  all. 
How  the  great  planet  glows,  and  looks  at  me. 
And  seems  to  pierce  me  with  his  effluence! 
Were  he  a  living  God,  these  rays  that  stir 
In  me  the  pulse  of  wonder  were  in  him 
Fullness  of  knowledge.     Are  you  certified, 
Sephardo,  that  the  astral  science  shrinks 
To  such  pale  ashes,  dead  symbolic  forms 
For  that  congenital  mixture  of  effects 
Which  life  declares  without  the  aid  of  lore? 
If  there  are  times  propitious  or  malign 
To  our  first  framing,  then  must  all  events 
Have  favoring  periods:  you  cull  your  plants 
By  signal  of  the  heavens,  then  why  not  trace 
As  others  would  by  astrologic  rule 
Times  of  good  augury  for  momentous  acts, — 
As  secret  journeys? 

Sephardo. 

Oh,  my  lord,  the  stars 
Act  not  as  witchcraft  or  as  muttered  spells. 
I  said  before  they  are  not  absolute. 


THE   SPAJTISH   GYPSY.  413 

And  tell  no  fortunes.     I  adhere  alone 
To  such  tradition  of  their  agencies 
As  reason  fortifies. 

Don  Silva. 

A  barren  science! 
Some  argue  now  'tis  folly.     'Twere  as  well 
Be  of  their  mind.     If  those  bright  stars  had  will — 
But  they  are  fatal  fires,  and  know  no  love. 
Of  old,  I  think,  the  world  was  happier 
With  many  gods,  who  held  a  struggling  life 
As  mortals  do,  and  helped  men  in  the  straits 
Of  forced  misdoing.     I  doubt  that  horoscope. 

(Don  Silva  turns  from  the  tohidoiv  and  reseats  Mmself 

opposite  Sephardo.) 

I  am  most  self-contained,  and  strong  to  bear. 
No  man  save  you  has  seen  my  trembling  lip 
Utter  her  name,  since  she  was  lost  to  me. 
I'll  face  the  progeny  of  all  my  deeds. 

Sephardo. 

May  they  be  fair !     ISTo  horoscope  makes  slaves. 
^Tis  but  a  mirror,  shows  one  image  forth. 
And  leaves  the  future  dark  with  endless  ''ifs.-'^ 

Don  Silva. 

I  marvel,  my  Sephardo,  you  can  pinch 

With  confident  selection  these  few  grains^ 

And  call  them  verity,  from  out  the  dust 

Of  crumbling  error.     Surely  such  thought  creeps, 

With  insect  exploration  of  the  world. 

Were  I  a  Hebrew,  now,  I  would  be  bold. 

Why  should  you  fear,  not  being  Catholic? 

Sephardo. 

Lo!  3'OU  yourself,  my  lord,  mix  subtleties 
With  gross  belief;  by  momentary  lapse 
Conceive,  with  all  the  vulgar,  that  we  Jews 
Must  hold  ourselves  God's  outlaws,  and  defy 
All  good  Avitli  blasphemy,  because  we  hold 
Your  good  is  evil;  think  we  must  turn  pale 


414  THE   SPANISH   GYPSY. 

To  see  our  portraits  painted  in  yoiir  hell. 
And  sin  the  more  for  knowing  we  are  lost. 

Don  Silva. 

Eead  not  my  words  with  malice.     I  but  meant. 
My  temper  hates  an  over-cautious  march. 

Sephardo. 

The  Unnameable  made  not  the  search  for  truth 

To  suit  hidalgos'  temper.     I  abide 

By  that  wise  spirit  of  listening  reverence 

Which  marks  the  boldest  doctors  of  our  race. 

For  Truth,  to  us,  is  like  a  living  child 

Born  of  two  parents:  if  the  parents  part 

And  will  divide  the  child,  how  shall  it  live? 

Or,  I  will  rather  say:  Two  angels  guide 

The  path  of  man,  both  aged  and  yet  young. 

As  angels  are,  ripening  through  endless  years. 

On  one  he  leans:  some  call  her  Memory, 

And  some  Tradition;  and  her  voice  is  sweet. 

With  deep  mysterious  accords:  the  other. 

Floating  above,  holds  down  a  lamp  which  streams 

A  light  divine  and  searching  on  the  earth. 

Compelling  eyes  and  footsteps.     Memory  yields. 

Yet  clings  with  loving  check,  and  shines  anew 

Eeflecting  all  the  rays  of  that  bright  lamp 

Our  angel  Reason  holds.     We  had  not  walked 

But  for  Tradition;  we  walk  evermore 

To  higher  paths,  by  brightening  Eeason's  lamp. 

Still  we  are  purblind,  tottering.     I  hold  less 

Than  Aben-Ezra,  of  that  aged  lore 

Brought  by  long  centuries  from  Chaldsean  plains; 

The  Jew-taught  Florentine  rejects  it  all. 

For  still  the  light  is  measured  by  the. eye, 

And  the  weak  organ  fails.     I  may  see  ill; 

But  over  all  belief  is  faithfulness. 

Which  fulfills  vision  with  obedience. 

So,  I  must  grasp  my  morsels:  truth  is  oft 

Scattered  in  fragments  round  a  stately  pile 

Built  half  of  error;  and  tlie  eye's  defect 

May  breed  too  much  denial.     But,  my  lord, 

I  weary  your  sick  soul.     Go  now  with  me 

Into  the  turret.     We  will  watcli  the  spheres. 

And  see  the  constellations  bend  and  plunge 


THE    SPANISH   GYPSY.  415 

Into  a  depth  of  being  where  our  eyes 

Hold  them  no  more.     We'll  quit  ourselves  and  be 

The  red  Aldebaran  or  bright  Sirius, 

And  sail  as  m  a  solemn  voyage,  bound 

On  some  great  quest  we  know  not. 

Do]sr  SiLVA. 

Let  as  go. 
She  may  be  watching  too,  and  thought  of  her 
Sways  me,  as  if  she  knew,  to  every  act 
Of  pure  allegiance. 

Sephaedo. 

That  IS  love's  perfection — 
Tuning  the  soul  to  all  her  harmonies 
So  that  no  chord  can  jar.     Now  we  will  mount. 

A  large  Jiall  in  the  Castle,  of  Mooi'ish  arcliitecture.  On 
the  side  where  the  wiudoivs  are,  an  outer  gallery.  Pages 
a7id  other  young  gentlemen  attached  to  Don  Silva's 
household,  gathered  chiefly  at  one  end  of  the  hall.  Some 
are  moving  about;  others  are  lounging  on  the  carved 
heiiches;  others,  half  stretched  on  iiieces  of  matting  and 
carpet,  are  gambling.  Arias,  a  stripling  of  fifteen, 
sings  by  snatches  in  a  boyish  treble,  as  he  waller  up  and 
down,  and  tosses  bach  the  nuts  ivhich  another  youth  flings 
toward  him.  In  the  middle  Don  Amador,  a  gaunt, 
gray-haired  soldier,  in  a  handsome  uniform,  sits  in  a 
marble  red-cushioned  chair,  with  a  large  booh  spread  out 
on  his  hnees,  from  which  he  is  reading  aloud,  icliile  his 
voice  IS  half-drowned  by  the  talh  that  is  going  on  around 
him,  first  one  voice  and  then  another  surging  above  the 
hum. 

Arias  {singing). 

There  was  a  holy  hermit 

Who  counted  all  things  loss 
For  Christ  his  Master's  (/lory; 

He  made  an  ivory  cross. 
And  as  he  hnelt  before  it 

And  loejjt  his  murdered  Lord^ 
The  ivory  turned  to  iron, 

The  cross  became  a  sword. 


416  THE    SPANISH    GYPSY. 

Jose  {from  tJie floor). 

I  say,   twenty  cruzados!  thy  Galician  wit  can  nevei* 
count 

Hernando  {also  from  the  floor). 
And  thy  Sevillian  wit  always  counts  double. 

Arias  {singing). 

The  fears  that  fell  upo7i  it, 

They  tvrned  to  red,  red  rust, 
The  fears  that  fell  from  off  it 

Made  writing  in  the  dust. 
The  holy  hermit,  gazing, 

Saw  words  upon  the  ground : 
*'  The  sword  he  red  forever 

With  the  Mood  of  false  Mahound. 


» 


Don  Amador  {looking  up  from  his  booJc,  and  raising  his 

voice). 

What,  gentlemen!     Our  Glorious  Lady  defend  us! 

Enriquez  {front  the  benches). 

Serves  the  infidels  right!  They  have  sold  Christians 
enough  to  people  half  the  towns  in  Paradise.  If  the  Queen, 
now,  had  divided  the  pretty  damsels  of  Malaga  among  the 
Castilians  who  have  been  helping  in  the  holy  war,  and  not 
sent  half  of  them  to  Naples 

Arias  {singing  again). 

At  the  hatfle  of  Clavijo 
In  the  days  of  King  Raniiro, 
Help  us,  A  lla.h  !  cried  the  Moslem, 
Cried  the  Spaniard,  Heaven's  chosen, 

God  and  Santiago! 

Fabian. 

Oh,  the  very  tail  of  our  chance  has  vanished.  The  royal 
army  is  breaking  up — going  home  for  the  winter.  The 
Grand  Master  sticks  to  his  own  border. 

Arias  {si^iging). 
Straight  out-flushing  like  the  rainbow. 


THE    SPANISH    GYPSY.  417 

See  Mm,  come,  celestial  Baron, 

Mounted  knight,  with  red-crossed  tanner. 

Plunging  earthivard  to  the  battle. 

Glorious  Santiago  ! 

HURTADO. 

Yes,  yes,  through  the  pass  of  By-and-by,  yon  go  to  the 
valley  of  Never.  We  might  have  done  a  great  feat,  if  the 
Marquis  of  Cadiz 

Arias  (sings). 

As  the  flame  before  the  swift  wind, 
See,  he  fires  us,  lue  burn  with,  him! 
Flash  our  swords,  dash  Pagans  bachioard — 
Victory  he!  pale  fear  is  Allah! 

God  loith  Santiago  ! 

Don  Amador  {raising  his  voice  to  a  cry). 
Sangre  de  Dios,  gentlemen! 

{He  shuts  the  book,  and  lets  it  fall  ivith  a  bang  on  the 
floor.     There  is  instant  silence. ) 

To  what  good  end  is  it  that  I,  who  studied  at  Salamanca, 
and  can  write  verses  agreeable  to  the  Glorious  lady,  with 
the  point  of  a  sword  which  hath  done  harder  service,  am 
reading  aloud  in  a  clerkly  manner  from  a  book  which  hatli 
been  culled  from  the  flowers  of  all  books,  to  instruct  you 
in  the  knowledge  befitting  those  who  would  be  knights  and 
worthy  hidalgos?  I  had  as  lief  be  reading  in  a  belfry. 
And  gambling  too!  As  if  it  were  a  time  when  we  needed 
not  the  help  of  God  and  the  saints!  Surely  for  the  space 
of  ono  hour  ye  might  subdue  your  tongues  to  your  ears, 
that  so  your  tongues  might  learn  somewhat  of  civility  and 
modesty.  Wherefore  am  I  master  of  the  Duke's  retinue, 
if  my  voice  is  to  run  along  like  a  gutter  in  a  storm? 

HuRTADO  {lifting  up  the  book,  and  respectfully  presenting 

it  to  Don  Amador). 

Pardon.  Don  Amador!  The  air  is  so  com  moved  by  3'^our 
voice,  that  it  stirs  our  tongues  in  spite  of  us. 

Don  Amador  {reopening  the  book). 

Confess,   now;  it  is  a  goose-headed  trick,   that   when 

27 


418  THE    SPANISH    GYPSY. 

rational  sounds  are  made  for  your  edification,  you  find 
naught  in  it  but  an  occasion  i'or  purposeless  gabble.  I 
will  report  it  to  the  Duke,  and  the  reading-time  shall  be 
doubled,  and  my  office  of  reader  shall  be  handed  over  to 
Fray  Domingo. 

( While  Don  Amadoe  lias  been  siJeaMng,  Don  Silva,  ivitli 
Don  Alvar,  lias  appeared  toalkmg  in  the  outer  gallery 
on  which  the  windoivs  are  opened.) 


No,  no,  no. 


All  (in  concert). 


Don  Amador. 


Are  ye  ready,  then,  to  listen,  if  I  finish  the  wholesome 
extract  from  the  Seven  Parts,  wherein  the  wise  King 
Alfonso  hath  set  down  the  reason  why  knights  should  be 
of  gentle  birth?    Will  ye  now  be  silent? 

All. 

Yes,  silent. 

Don  Amador. 

But  when  I  pause,  and  look  up,  I  give  any  leave  to 
speak,  if  he  hath  aught  pertinent  to  say. 

{Beads.) 

"And  this  nobility  cometh  in  three  ways;  first,  by 
lineage,  secondly,  by  science,  and  thirdly,  by  valor  and 
worthy  behavior.  Now,  although  they  who  gain  nobility 
through  science  or  good  deeds  are  rightfully  called  noble 
and  gentle;  nevertheless,  they  are  witli  the  highest  fitness 
so  called  who  are  noble  by  ancient  lineage,  and  lead  a 
worthy  life  as  by  inheritance  from  afar;  and  hence  are 
more  bound  and  constrained  to  act  well,  and  guard  them- 
selves from  error  and  wrong-doing;  for  in  their  case  it  is 
more  true  that  by  evil-doing  they  bring  injury  and  shame 
not  only  on  themselves,  but  also  on  those  from  whom  they 
are  derived." 

Don  Amador  {placing  his  forefinger  for  a  mark  on  the 
page,  and  looking  up,  while  he  keeps  his  voice  raised,  as 
wishing  Don  Silva  to  overhear  him  in  the  judicious 
discharge  of  Ids  fiinctio7i). 


THE    SPANISH    GYPSY.  419 

Hear  ye  that,  young  gentlemen?  See  ye  not  that  if  ye 
have  but  bad  manners  even,  they  disgrace  you  more  than 
gross  misdoings  disgrace  the  low-born?  Think  you,  Arias, 
it  becomes  the  son  of  your  house  irreverently  to  sing  and 
fling  nuts,  to  the  interruption  of  your  elders? 

Aeias  {sitting  on  the  floor,  and  leaning  hachiuard  on  his 

elbows.) 

Nay,  Don  Amador;  King  Alfonso,  they  say,  was  a 
heretic,  and  I  think  that  is  not  true  writing.  For  noble 
birth  gives  us  more  leave  to  do  ill  if  we  like. 

Don  Amador  {lifting  his  hroivs). 
What  bold  and  blasphemous  talk  is  this? 

Arias. 

Why,  nobles  are  only  punished  now  and  then,  in  a  grand 
way,  and  have  their  heads  cut  off,  like  the  Grand  Con- 
stable.    I  shouldn't  mind  that. 

Jose. 

Nonsense,  Arias!  nobles  have  their  heads  cut  off  because 
their  crimes  are  noble.  If  they  did  what  was  unknightly, 
they  would  come  to  shame.  Is  not  that  true,  Don 
Amador? 

Don  Amador. 

Arias  is  a  contumacious  puppy,  who  will  bring  dishonor 
on  his  parentage.  Pray,  sirrah,  whom  did  you  ever  hear 
speak  as  you  have  spoken? 

Arias. 

Nay,  I  speak  out  of  my  own  head.  I  shall  go  and  ask 
the  Duke. 

HURTADO. 

Now,  now!  you  are  too  bold.  Arias. 

Arias. 

Oh.  he  is  never  angry  with  me, — {Dropping  his  voice) 
because  the   Lady  Fedahna  liked  me.     She  said  I  was  a 


420  THE    SPAlSriSH    GYPSY. 

good   boy,  aud  pretty,  and   that   is  what  you  are   not, 
Hurtado. 

HURTADO. 

Girl-face !     See,  now,  if  yon  dare  ask  the  Duke. 

(Don  Silva  is  just  entering  the  hall  from  the  gallery,  with 
Don  Alvar  heldncl  him,  intending  to  pass  out  at  the 
other  end.  All  rise  with  homage.  Don  Silva  lows 
coldly  and  abstractedly.  Arias  advances  from  the  groiqj, 
a7id goes  up  to  Don  Silva.) 

Arias. 

My  lord,  is  it  true  that  a  noble  is  more  dishonored  tlian 
other  men  if  he  does  anght  dislionorable? 

Don  Silva  {first  Mushing  deeply,  and  grasping  his  sword, 
then  raising  his  hand  and  giving  Arias  a  blow  on  the 
ear). 

Varlet! 

Arias. 

My  lord,  I  am  a  gentleman. 
(Don  Silva  pushes  him  away,  and  passes  on  Mirriedly. ) 

Don  Alvar  {following  and  turning  to  speak). 

Go,  go!  you  should  not  speak  to  the  Duke  when  you  are 
not  called  upon.     He  is  ill  and  much  distempered. 

(Arias  retires,  flushed,  with  tears  in  his  eyes.  His  com- 
panions look  too  much  surprised  to  triumph.  Don 
Amador  remaifis  silent  and  confused.) 

The  Plapa  Santiago  during  busy  market-time.  Mules  and 
asses  laden  with  fruits  and  vegetables.  Stalls  and  booths 
filled  'With  wares  of  all  sorts.  A  croivd  of  buyers  and 
sellers.  A  stalwart  woman,  with  keen  eyes,  leaning  over 
the  ptanniers  of  a  mule  laden  with  apples,  watches 
Lorenzo,  loho  is  lounginy  through  the  market.  As  he 
approaches  her,  he  is  met  by  Blasco. 

Lorenzo. 
Well  met,  friend. 


THE    SPANISH    GYPSY.  •121 


Blasco. 


Ay,  for  we  are  soon  to  part. 
And  I  would  see  you  at  the  hostelry. 
To  take  my  reckoning.     I  go  forth  to-day. 

LOKENZO. 

'Tis  grievous  parting  with  good  company. 
I  would  I  had  the  gold  to  pay  such  guests 
For  all  my  pleasure  in  their  talk. 

Blasco. 

Why,  yes; 
A  solid-headed  man  of  Aragon 
Has  matter  in  him  that  you  Southerners  lack. 
You  like  my  company — 'tis  natural. 
But,  look  you,  I  have  done  my  business  well, 
Have  sold  and  ta'en  commissions.     I  come  straight 
From — you  know  who — I  like  not  naming  him. 
I'm  a  thick  man;  you  reach  not  my  backbone 
With  any  tooth-pick;  but  I  tell  you  this: 
He -reached  it  with  his  eye,  right  to  the  marrow. 
It  gave  me  heart  that  I  had  plate  to  sell, 
For,  saint  or  no  saint,  a  good  silversmith 
Is  wanted  for  God's  service;  and  my  plate — 
He  judged  it  well — bought  nobly. 


A  great  man, 


Lorenzo. 
And  holy! 

Blasco. 

Yes,  I'm  glad  I  leave  to-day. 
For  tliere  are  stories  give  a  sort  of  smell — 
One's  nose  has  fancies.     A  good  trader,  sir. 
Likes  not  tliis  plague  of  lapsing  in  the  air. 
Most  caught  by  men  with  funds.     And  they  do  &2i,j 
There's  a  great  terror  here  in  Moors  and  Jews, 
I  would  say,  Christians  of  uuhappy  blood. 
'Tis  monstrous,  sure,  that  men  of  substance  lapse. 
And  risk  their  jiroperty.     I  know  I'm  sound. 
No  heresy  was  ever  bait  to  me.     Wliate'er 
Is  the  right  faith,  that  I  believe — naught  else. 


423  THE   iSPAJSriSH    GYPSY. 


Lorenzo. 


Ay,  truly,  for  tlie  flavor  of  true  faith 

Once  known  must  sure  be  sweetest  to  the  taste. 

But  an  uneasy  mood  is  now  abroad 

Within  the  town;  partly,  for  that  the  Duke 

Being  sorely  sick,  has  yielded  the  command 

To  Don  Diego,  a  most  valiant  man. 

More  Catholic  than  the  Holy  Father's  self. 

Half  chiding  God  that  He  will  tolerate 

A  Jew  or  Arab;  though,  'tis  plain  they're  made 

For  profit  of  good  Christians,     And  weak  heads — 

Panic  will  knit  all  disconnected  facts — 

Draw  hence  belief  in  evil  auguries, 

Rumors  of  accusation  and  arrest. 

All  air-begotten.     Sir,  you  need  not  go. 

But  if  it  must  be  so,  I'll  follow  you 

In  fifteen  minutes — finish  marketing, 

Then  be  at  home  to  speed  you  on  your  way. 

Blasco. 

Do  so.     I'll  back  to  Saragossa  straight. 

The  court  and  nobles  are  retiring  now 

And  wending  northward.     There'll  be  fresh  demand 

For  bells  and  images  against  the  Spring, 

When  doubtless  our  great  Catholic  sovereigns 

Will  move  to  conquest  of  these  eastern  parts. 

And  cleanse  Granada  from  the  infidel. 

Stay,  sir,  with  God,  until  we  meet  again! 

Lorenzo. 

Go,  sir,  with  God,  until  I  follow  you. 

[Exit  Blasco.  Lorenzo  passes  on  toward  the  marketr 
wofna?i,  who,  as  he  approaches,  raises  herself  from  her 
leaning  attitude. ) 

Lorenzo. 

Good-day,  my  mistress.     How's  your  merchandise? 

Fit  for  a  host  to  buy?    Your  apples  now, 

They  have  fair  cheeks;  how  are  they  at  the  core? 

Market- Woman. 

Good,  good,  sir!    Taste  and  try.     See,  here  is  one 
Weighs  a  man's  head.     The  best  are  bound  with  tow: 
They're  Avorth  the  pains,  to  keep  the  peel  from  splits. 


THE    SPANISH    GYPSY.  433 

{She  takes  out  an  apple  bound  ivith  tow,  and,  as  site  puts 
it  i7ito  Lorenzo's  hand,  speahs  in  a  lotver  tone.) 

'Tis  called  the  Miracle.     You  open  it. 
And  find  it  full  of  speech. 

Lorenzo. 

Ay,  give  it  me, 
I'll  take  it  to  the  Doctor  in  the  tower. 
He  feeds  on  fruit,  and  if  he  likes  the  sort 
I'll  buy  them  for  him.     Meanwhile,  drive  your  ass 
Eound  to  my  hostelry.     I'll  straight  be  there. 
You'll  not  refuse  some  barter? 

Market- Woman. 

No,  not  I. 
Feathers  and  skins. 

Lorenzo. 

Good,  till  we  meet  again. 

(Lorenzo,  after  smelling  at  the  apple,  puts  it  into  a  pouch- 
like basket  ivhich  hangs  before  him,  and  loalks  aiuay. 
The  woman  drives  off  the  mule. ) 

A  Letter. 

"  Zarca,  the  chieftain  of  the  Gypsies,  greets 
''The  King  El  Zagal.     Let  the  force  be  sent 
''With  utmost  swiftness  to  the  Pass  of  Luz. 
"A  good  five  hundred  added  to  my  bands 
"Will  master  all  tlie  garrison:  the  town 
"Is  half  with  us,  and  will  not  lift  an  arm 
"Save  on  our  side.     My  scouts  have  found  a  way 
"Where  once  we  thouglit  tlio  fortress  most  secure: 
"Spying  a  man  upon  the  hciglit,  they  traced, 
"By  keen  conjecture  piecing  broken  sight, 
"  His  downward  path,  and  found  its  issue.     There 
"A file  of  us  can  mount,  surprisp  the  fort 
"And  give  the  signal  to  our  friends  witliin 
"To  ope  the  gates  for  our  confederate  bands, 
"Who  will  lie  eastward  ambuslied  by  the  rocks, 
"  Waiting  the  night.     Enough;  give  me  command, 
"  Bedmar  is  yours.     Chief  Zarca  will  redeem 
"His  pledge  of  highest  service  to  the  Moor: 


424  THE   SPANISH    GYPSY. 

*'Let  the  Moor  too  be  faithful  and  repay 
"The  Gypsy  with  the  furtherance  he  needs 
''To  lead  his  people  over  Bahr  el  Scham 
"And  plant  them  on  the  shore  of  Africa. 
"  So  may  the  King  El  Zagal  live  as  one 
"Who,  trusting  Allah  will  be  true  to  him, 
"Maketh  himself  as  Allah  true  to  friends.  ^^ 


BOOK  III. 

Quit  now  the  town,  and  with  a  journeying  dream 

Swift  as  the  wings  of  sound  yet  seeming  slow 

Through  multitudinous  pulsing  of  stored  sense 

And  spiritual  space,  see  walls  and  towers 

Lie  in  the  silent  whiteness  of  a  trance. 

Giving  no  sign  of  that  warm  life  within 

That  moves  and  murmurs  through  their  hidden  heart. 

Pass  o^er  the  mountain,  wind  in  sombre  shade. 

Then  wind  into  the  light  and  see  the  town 

Shrunk  to  white  crust  upon  the  darker  rock. 

Turn  east  and  south,  descend,  then  rise  anew 

^Mid  smaller  mountains  ebbing  toward  tlie  plain: 

Scent  the  fresh  breath  of  the  height-loving  herbs 

That,  trodden  by  the  pretty  parted  hoofs 

Of  nimble  goats,  sigh  at  the  mnocent  bruise. 

And  with  a  mingled  difference  exquisite 

Pour  a  sweet  burden  on  the  buoyant  air. 

Pause  now  and  be  all  ear.     Far  from  the  south. 

Seeking  the  listening  silence  of  the  heights, 

Comes  a  slow-dying  sound— the  Moslems'  call 

To  prayer  in  afternoon.     Bright  in  the  sun 

Like  tall  white  sails  on  a  green  shadowy  sea 

Stand  Moorish  watch-towers:  'neath  that  eastern  sky 

Couches  unseen  the  strength  of  Moorish  Baza; 

AVhere  the  meridian  bends  lies  Cluadix,  hold 

Of  brave  El  Zagal.     This  is  Moorish  land, 

Where  Allah  lives  unconquered  in  dark  breasts 

And  blesses  still  the  many-nourishing  earth 

With  dark-armed  industry.     Sec  from  the  steep 

The  scattered  olives  hurry  in  gray  throngs 

Down  toward  the  valley,  where  the  little  stream 

Parts  a  green  hollow  'twixt  the  gentler  slopes; 


THE    SPANISH   GYPSY.  435 

And  ill  that  hollow,  dwellings:  noc  white  homes 

Of  building  Moors,  but  little  swarthy  tents 

Such  as  of  old  j)erhaps  on  Asian  plains. 

Or  wending  westward  past  the  Caucasus, 

Our  fathers  raised  to  rest  in.     Close  they  swarm 

About  two  taller  tents,  and  viewed  afar 

Might  seem  a  dark-robed  crowd  in  penitence 

That  silent  kneel;  but  come  now  in  their  midst 

And  watch  a  busy,  bright-eyed,  sportive  life! 

Tall  maidens  bend  to  feed  the  tethered  goat. 

The  ragged  kirtle  fringing  at  the  knee 

Above  the  living  curves,  the  shoulder's  smoothness 

Parting  the  torrent  strong  of  ebon  hair. 

Women  with  babes,  the  Avild  and  neutral  glance 

Swayed  now  to  sweet  desire  of  mothers'  eyes. 

Rock  their  strong  cradling  arms  and  chant  low  strains 

Taught  by  monotonous  and  soothing  winds 

That  fall  at  night-time  on  the  dozing  ear. 

The  crones  plait  reeds,  or  shred  the  vivid  herbs 

Into  the  caldron:  tiny  urchins  crawl  • 

Or  sit  and  gurgle  forth  their  infant  joy. 

Lads  lying  sphynx-like  with  uplifted  breast 

Propped  on  their  elbows,  their  black  manes  tossed  back, 

Fling  up  the  coin  and  watch  its  fatal  fall. 

Dispute  and  scramble,  run  and  wrestle  fierce. 

Then  fall  to  play  and  fellowship  again; 

Or  in  a  thieving  swarm  they  run  to  plague 

The  grandsires,  who  return  with  rabbits  slung, 

And  with  the  mules  fruit-laden  from  the  fields. 

Some  striplings  choose  the  smooth  stones  from  the 

brook 
To  serve  the  slingers,  cut  the  twigs  for  snares, 
Or  trim  the  hazel-wands,  or  at  the  bark 
Of  some  exploring  dog  they  dart  away 
"With  swift  precision  toward  a  moving  speck. 
These  are  the  brood  of  Zarca's  Uypsy  tribe; 
Most  like  an  earth-born  race  bred  by  the  Sun 
On  some  rich  tropic  soil,  the  father's  light 
Flashing  in  coal-black  eyes,  the  mother's  blood 
With  bounteous  elements  feeding  their  young  limbs. 
The  stalwart  men  and  youths  are  at  the  wars 
Following  their  chief,  all  save  a  trusty  band 
Who  keep  strict  watch  along  the  northern  heights. 
But  see,  upon  a  pleasant  spot  removed 
From  the  camp's  hnbbub,  where  the  tliicket  strong 


426  THE   SPANISH   GYPSY. 

Of  huge-eared  cactus  makes  a  bordering  curve 
And  casts  a  shadow,  lies  a  sleeping  man 
With  Spanish  hat  screening  his  upturned  face, 
His  doublet  loose,  his  right  arm  backward  flung, 
His  left  caressing  close  the  long-necked  lute 
That  seems  to  sleep  too,  leaning  toward  its  lord. 
He  draws  deep  breath  secure  but  not  unwatched. 
Moving  a-tiptoe,  silent  as  the  elves, 
As  mischievous,  too,  trip  three  barefooted  girls 
ISTot  opened  yet  to  womanhood — dark  flowers 
In  slim  long  buds:  some  paces  farther  oif 
Gathers  a  little  white-teethed  shaggy  group, 
A  grinning  chorus  to  the  merry  play. 
The  tripping  girls  have  robbed  the  sleeping  man 
Of  all  his  ornaments.     Hita  is  decked 
With  an  embroidered  scarf  across  her  rags; 
Tralla,  with  thorns  for  pins,  sticks  two  rosettes 
Upon  her  threadbare  woolen;  Hinda  now. 
Prettiest  and  boldest,  tucks  her  kirtle  up 
As  wallet  for  the  stolen  buttons— then 
Bends  with  her  knife  to  cut  from  off  the  hat 
The  aigrette  and  long  feather;  deftly  cuts. 
Yet  wakes  the  sleeper,  who  with  sudden  start 
Shakes  off  the  masking  hat  and  shows  the  face 
Of  Juan:  Ilinda  swift  as  thought  leaps  back. 
But  carries  off  the  spoil  triumphantly, 
And  leads  the  chorus  of  a  happy  laugh, 
Eunning  with  all  the  naked-footed  imps. 
Till  with  safe  survey  all  can  face  about 
And  watch  for  signs  of  stimulating  chase, 
While  Hinda  ties  long  grass  around  her  brow 
To  stick  the  feather  in  with  majesty. 
Juan  still  sits  contemplative,  with  looks 
Alternate  at  the  spoilers  and  their  work. 


Juan. 

IV  feather  sone 


Ah,  you  marauding  kite— my  feather  gone! 
My  belt,  my  scarf,  my  buttons  and  rosettes! 
This  is  to  be  a  brother  of  your  tribe! 
The  fiery-blooded  children  of  the  Sun- 
So  says  chief  Zarca— children  of  the  Sun! 
Ay,  ay,  the  black  and  stinging  flies  lie  breeds 
To  plague  the  decent  body  of  mankind. 
"  Orpheus,  professor  of  the  (jai  saber, 


THE    SPANISH    GYPSY.  1^7 

Made  all  the  brutes  polite  by  dint  of  song."' 

Pregnant — but  as  a  guide  in  daily  life 

Delusive.     For  if  song  and  music  cure 

The  barbarous  trick  of  thieving,  'tis  a  cure 

That  works  as  slowly  as  old  Doctor  Time 

In  curing  folly.     Why,  the  minxes  there 

Have  rhythm  in  their  toes,  and  music  rings 

As  readily  from  them  as  from  little  bells 

Swung  by  the  breeze.     Well,  I  will  try  the  physic. 

{He  touches  his  lute.) 

Hem!  taken  rightly,  any  single  thing. 
The  Eabbis  say,  implies  all  other  things. 
A  knotty  task,  though,  the  unraveling   ' 
Metwi  and  Tuvm  from  a  saraband: 
It  needs  a  subtle  logic,  nay,  perhaps 
A  good  large  property,  to  see  the  thread. 

{He  touches  the  lute  again.) 

There^s  more  of  odd  than  even  in  this  word. 

Else  pretty  sinners  would  not  be  let  off 

Sooner  than  ugly;  for  if  honeycombs 

Are  to  be  got  by  stealing,  they  should  go 

Where  life  is  bitterest  on  the  tongue.     And  yet — 

Because  this  minx  has  pretty  ways  I  wink 

k.i  all  her  tricks,  though  if  a  flat-faced  lass. 

With  eyes  askew,  were  half  as  bold  as  she, 

I  should  chastise  her  with  a  hazel  switch. 

I'm  a  plucked  peacock — even  my  voice  and  wit 

Without  a  tail! — why,  any  fool  detects 

The  absence  of  your  tail,  but  twenty  fools 

May  not  detect  the  presence  of  your  wit. 

{He  touches  his  lute  again.) 

Well,  I  must  coax  my  tail  back  cunningly, 
For  to  run  after  these  brown  lizards — ah! 
I  think  the  lizards  lift  their  ears  at  this. 

{As  he  thrums  his  lute  the  lads  and  girls  gradually  ap- 
proach: he  touches  it  more  briskly,  and  Hinda,  advanc- 
ing, begins  to  move  arms  and  hgs  with  an  initiatory 
dancing  movement,  smiling  coaxingly  at  Juan.  He  sud- 
denly stops,  lays  doiun  his  lute  and  folds  his  arms.) 


4)^8  the  spanish  gypsy. 

Juan. 
What,  you  expect  a  tune  to  dance  to,  eh.? 

HiNDA,  HiTA,  Tralla,  AND  THE  REST  {clapping  their 

hands. ) 

Yes,  yes,  a  tune,  a  tune  ! 

Juan. 

But  that  is  what  you  cannot  have,  my  sweet  brothers 
and  sisters.  The  tunes  are  all  dead — dead  as  the  tunes  of 
the  lark  when  you  have  plucked  his  wings  off;  dead  as  the 
song  of  the  grasshopper  when  the  ass  has  swallowed  him. 
I  can  play  and  sing  no  more.     Hinda  has  killed  my  tunes. 

{All  cry  out  in  consternation.     Hinda  gives  a  wail  an^ 
tries  to  examine  the  lute.) 

Juan  {tvaving  her  off). 

Understand,  Senora  Hinda,  that  the  tunes  are  in  me; 
they  are  not  in  the  lute  till  I  put  them  there.  And  if  you 
cross  my  humor,  I  shall  be  as  tuneless  as  a  bag  of  wool. 
If  the  tunes  are  to  be  brought  to  life  again,  I  must  have 
my  feather  back. 

(Hinda  kisses  his  hands  and  feet  coaxitiglg.) 

No,  no !  not  a  note  will  come  for  coaxing.  The  feather, 
I  say,  the  feather! 

(Hinda  sorrowfully  takes  off'  the  feather,  and  gives  it  to 

Juan.  ) 

Ah,  now  let  us  see.     Perhaps  a  tune  will  come. 

{He  plays  a  measure,  and  the  three  girls  begin  to  dance; 
then  he  suddenly  stops.) 

Juan. 

No,  the  tune  will  not  come:  it  wants  the  aigrette  {point- 
ing to  it  on  Hinda' s  nech). 

(Hinda,  toith  rather  less  hesitation,  hut  again  sorrowfully, 
takes  off  the  aigrette,  and  gives  it  to  him. ) 


the  spanish  gypsy.  439 

Jfan. 

Ha!  {He  plays  again,  hut,  after  ratlier  a  longer  time, 
'again  stops.)  No,  no;  ^tis  the  buttons  are  wanting,  Hiuda, 
the  buttons.  This  tune  feeds  chiefly  on  buttons — a  greedy 
tune.     It  wants  one,  two,  three,  four,  five,  six.     Good! 

{After  HiNDA  has  given  up  the  buttons,  and  Juak  has 
laid  them  down  one  by  one,  he  begins  to  play  again,  going 
on  longer  than  before,  so  that  the  dancers  becoine  excited 
by  the  movement.     Then  he  stops. ) 

Juan. 

Ah,  Hita,  it  is  the  belt,  and  Tralla,  the  rosettes — both 
are  wanting.     I  see  the  tune  will  not  go  on  without  them. 

(Hita  and  Tralla  take  off  the  belt  and  rosettes,  and  lay 
them  doion  quickly,  being  fired  by  the  dancing,  and  eager 

'  for  the  music.  All  the  articles  lie  by  Juan's  side  on  the 
ground. ) 

Juan. 

Good,  good,  my  docile  wild-cats!  Now  I  think  the 
tunes  are  all  alive  again.  Now  you  may  dance  and  sing 
too.  Hinda,  my  little  screamer,  lead  off  with  the  song  I 
taught  you,  and  let  us  see  if  the  tune  will  go  right  on  from 
beginning  to  eiul. 

{He  plays.  The  dance  begins  again,  Hinda  singing.  All 
the  other  boys  and  girls  join  in  the  chorus,  a7id  all  at  last 
dance  wildly. ) 

SONG. 

An  things  journey:  sun  and  moon, 
Morning,  noon,  and  afternoon. 

Night  and  all  her  stars: 
'Twixt  the  east  and  western  bars 

Round  they  journey, 
Come  and  go  ! 

We  go  with  them  ! 
For  to  roam  and  ever  roam 
Is  the  Zincali's  loved  home. 

Earth  is  good,  the  hillside  breaks 
By  the  ashen  roots  and  makes 
Hungry  nostrils  glad : 


430  THE   SPANISH    GYPSY. 

Then  we  run  till  we  are  mad, 

Like  the  horses, 
And  tve  cry, 

None  shall  catch  us! 
Swift  winds  iving  us  —  we  are  free — 
Drink  the  air  —  we  Zincali! 

Falls  the  s7iotv :  the  pine-iranch  split. 
Call  the  fire  out,  see  it  flit, 

Throtigh  the  dry  leaves  run. 
Spread  and  glow,  and  make  a  sun 

In  the  dark  tent  : 
0  warm  dark! 

Wamn  as  coriies! 
Strong  fire  loves  us,  we  are  warm ! 
Who  the  Zincali  shall  harm  ? 

Onward  journey :  fires  are  spent; 
Sunward,  sunward!  lift  the  tent. 

Run  before  the  rain, 
Tlirough  tlie  pass,  along  the  plain. 

Hurry,  hurry. 

Lift  us,  'wind! 

Like  the  horses. 
For  to  roam  and  ever  roam    , 
Is  the  Zi?iccdi's  loved  home. 

{When  the  datice  is  at  its  height,  Hinda  breaks  away 
from  the  rest,  and  dances  round  Juan,  who  is  noiv 
standing.  As  he  turns  a  little  to  tvatch  her  imvement, 
some  of  the  boys  skip  toward  the  feather,  aigrette,  etc., 
snatch  them  up,  ajid  run  away,  swiftly  followed  by 
HiTA,  Tralla,  a7id  the  rest.  Hinda,  as  slie  turns 
again,  sees  them,  screams,  and  falls  in  her  whirling; 
but  immediately  gets  up,  and  rushes  after  them,  still 
screaming  with  rage.) 

JUAN". 

Santiago!  these  imps  get  bolder.  Ha  ha!  Senora  Hind  a, 
this  finishes  your  lesson  in  ethics.  You  have  seen  the 
advantage  of  giving  up  stolen  goods.  Now  you  see  the 
ugliness  of  thieving  when  practiced  by  others.  _  That  fable 
of  mine  about  the  tunes  was  excellently  devised.  I  feel 
like  an  ancient  sage  instructing  our  lisping  ancestors.  My 
memory  will  descend  as  the  Orpheus  of  Gypsies.     But  I 


THE    SPANISH    GYPSY.  431 

must  prei^cire  a  rod  for  those  rascals.  I'll  bastinado  them 
with  prickly  pears.  It  seems  to  me  these  needles  will  have 
a  sound  moral  teaching  in  them. 

(  While  JuAJsr  takes  a  knife  from  his  belt,  and  surveys  a 
hush  of  the  prickly  pear,  Hinda  returns.) 

Juan. 

Pray,  Senora,  why  do  you  fume?  Did  you  want  to  steal 
my  ornaments  again  yourself? 

HiNDA  {sobbing). 
No;  I  thought  you  would  give  them  me  back  again. 

Juan. 

What,  did  you  want  the  tunes  to  die  again?  Do  you 
like  finery  better  than  dancing? 

HiNDA. 

Oh,  that  was  a  tale!  I  shall  tell  tales,  too,  when  I  want 
to  get  anything  I  can^t  steal.  And  1  know  what  I  will  do. 
I  shall  tell  theboys  I've  found  some  little  foxes,  and  I  will 
never  say  where  they  are  till  they  give  me  back  the  feather! 

{She  runs  of  again.) 

Juan. 

Hem!  the  disciple  seems  to  seize  the  mode  sooner  than 
the  matter.  Teaching  virtue  with  this  prickly  pear  nuiy 
only  teach  the  youngsters  to  uSe  a  new  weapon;  as  your 
teaching  orthodoxy  ^vith  faggots  may  only  bring  up  a 
fashion  of  roasting.  Dios!  my  remarks  grow  too  preg- 
nant— my  wits  get  a  plethora  by  solitary  feeding  on  the 
produce  of  my  own  wisdom. 

{As  he  2mts  up  his  knife  again,  Hinda  comes  rwming 
back,  and  crying,  "Our  Queen!  our  Queen!"  Juan 
adjusts  his  garments  and  his  lute,  lohile  Hinda  turris  to 
meet  Fedalma,  ivho  wears  a  Moorish  dress,  her  black 
hair  hanging  round  her  in  j^laits,  a  white  turban  on  her 
head,  a  dagger  by  Iter  side.  Slie  carries  a  scarf  on  her 
left  arm,  ihhich  she  holds  up  as  a  shade.) 


432  THE   SPANISH    GYPSY. 

Fedalma  {patting  Hilda's  liead). 

How  now,  wild  one?     You  are  hot  and  panting.     Go  to 
my  tent,  and  help  JSTouna  to  plait  reeds. 

(Hi2f DA  hisses  Fedalma's  hand  and  runs  off.  Fedalma 
advances  toioard  Juak,  wIw  kneels  to  take  up  the  edge  of 
her  cymar,  and  hisses  it. ) 

JuA]sr. 

How  is  it  with  you,  lady?     You  look  sad. 

Fedalma. 

Oh,  I  am  sick  at  heart.     The  eye  of  day. 

The  insistent  summer  sun,  seems  pitiless. 

Shining  in  all  the  barren  crevices 

Of  weary  life,  leaving  no  shade,  no  dark. 

Where  I  may  dream  that  hidden  waters  lie; 

As  pitiless  as  to  some  shipwrecked  man 

Who  gazing  from  his  narrow  shoal  of  sand 

On  the  wide  unspecked  round  of  blue  and  blue 

Sees  that  full  light  is  errorless  despair. 

The  insects'  hum  that  slurs  the  silent  dark 

Startles  and  seems  to  cheat  me,  as  the  tread 

Of  coming  footsteps  cheats  the  midnight  watcher 

Who  holds  her  heart  and  waits  to  hear  them  pause. 

And  hears  them  never  pause,  but  pass  and  die. 

Music  sweeps  by  me  as  a  messenger 

Carrying  a  message  that  is  not  for  me. 

The  very  sameness  of  the  hills  and  sky 

Is  obduracy,  and  the  lingering  hours 

Wait  round  me  dumbjy,  like  superfluous  slaves. 

Of  whom  I  want  naught  but  the  secret  news 

They  are  forbid  to  tell.     And,  Juan,  you — 

You,  too,  are  cruel — would  be  over-wise 

In  judging  your  friend's  needs,  and  choose  to  hide 

Something  I  crave  to  know. 

JUAK. 

I,  lady? 

FlTDALMA. 

You. 


THE    t?PA]!^lSH    GYPSY.  4o3 


JUAJS". 


I  never  had  the  virtue  to  hide  ai;ght, 

Save  what  a  man  is  whipped  for  publishing. 

I'm  no  more  reticent  than  the  voluble  air — 

Dote  on  disclosure — never  could  contain 

The  latter  half  of  all  my  sentences, 

But  for  the  need  to  utter  the  beginning. 

My  lust  to  tell  is  so  importunate 

That  it  abridges  every  other  vice. 

And  makes  me  temperate  for  want  of  time. 

I  dull  sensation  in  the  haste  to  say 

^Tis  this  or  that,  and  choke  report  with  surmise. 

Judge,  then,  dear  lady,  if  I  could  be  mute 

When  but  a  glance  of  yours  had  bid  me  speak. 

Fedalma. 

Nay,  sing  such  falsities! — you  mock  me  worse 
By  speech  that  gravely  seems  to  ask  belief. 
You  are  but  babbling  in  a  part  you  play 

To  please  my  father.     Oh,  'tis  well  meant,  say  you- 
Pity  for  woman's  weakness.     Take  my  thanks. 

Juan. 

Thanks  angrily  bestowed  are  red-hot  coin 
Burning  your  servant's  palm. 

Fedalma. 

Deny  it  not. 
You  know  how  many  leagues  this  camp  of  ours 
Lies  from  Bedmar — what  mountains  lie  between — 
Could  tell  me  if  you  would  about  the  Duke — 
That  he  is  comforted,  sees  how  he  gains 
Losing  the  Zincala,  finds  now  how  slight 
The  thread  Fedalma  made  in  that  rich  web, 
A  Spanish  noble's  life.     No.  tliat  is  false! 
He  never  would  think  lightly  of  our  love. 
Some  evil  has  befallen  him — he's  slain — 
Has  sought  for  danger  and  has  beckoned  death 
Because!  made  all  life  seem  treachery. 
Tell  me  the  worst — be  merciful — no  worst. 
Against  the  hideous  painting  of  my  fear. 
Would  not  show  like  a  better. 
33 


434  the  spanish  gypsy. 

Juan. 

If  I  speak, 
Will  you  believe  your  slave?     For  truth  is  scant; 
And  where  the  appetite  is  still  to  hear 
And  not  believe,  falsehood  would  stint  it  less. 
How  say  you?    Does  your  hunger^s  fancy  choose 
The  meagre  fact? 

Fed  ALMA  {seating  herself  on  the  ground). 

Yes,  yes,  the  truth,  dear  Juan. 
Sit  now,  and  tell  me  all. 

Juan. 

That  all  is  naught. 
I  can  unleash  my  fancy  if  you  wish 
And  hunt  for  phantoms:  shoot  an  airy  guess 
And  bring  down  airy  likelihood — some  lie 
Masked  cunningly  to  look  like  royal  truth 
And  cheat  the  shooter,  while  King  Fact  goes  free; 
Or  else  some  imas,-e  of  realitv 
That  doubt  will  handle  and  reject  as  false 
As  for  conjecture — I  can  thread  the  sky 
Like  any  swallow,  but,  if  you  insist 
On  knowledge  that  would  guide  a  jDair  of  feet 
Eight  to  Bedmiir,  across  the  Moorish  bounds, 
A  mule  that  dreams  of  stumbling  over  stones 
Is  better  stored. 

Fedalma. 

And  you  have  gathered  naught 
About  the  border  wars?    No  news,  no  hint 
Of  any  rumors  that  concern  the  Duke — 
Rumors  kept  from  me  by  my  father? 

Juan. 

None. 
Your  father  trusts  no  secret  to  the  echoes. 
Of  late  his  movements  have  been  hid  from  all 
Save  those  few  hundred  chosen  Gypsy  breasts 
He  carries  with  him.     Think  you  he's  a  man 
To  let  his  projects  slip  from  out  his  belt, 
Then  whisper  him  who  haps  to  find  them  strayed 
To  be  so  kind  as  keep  his  counsel  well? 


THE   SPANISH    GYPSY.  435 

Why,  if  he  found  me  knowing  aught  too  much. 
He  would  straight  gag  or  strangle  me,  and  say, 
"Poor  hound!  it  was  a  pity  that  his  bark 
Could  chance  to  mar  my  plans:  he  loved  my  daughter — 
The  idle  hound  had  naught  to  do  but  love. 
So  followed  to  the  battle  and  got  crushed/' 

Fed  ALMA  {holding  out  lier  hand,  which  Juan  hisses). 

Good  Juan,  I  could  have  no  nobler  friend. 

You'd  ope  your  veins  and  let  your  life-blood  out 

To  save  another's  pain,  yet  hide  the  deed 

With  jesting — say,  'twas  merest  accident, 

A  sportive  scratch  that  went  by  chance  too  deep — 

And  die  content  with  men's  slight  thoughts  of  you. 

Finding  your  glory  in  another's  joy. 

Juan. 

Dub  not  my  likings  virtues,  lest  they  get 
A  drug-like  taste,  and  breed  a  nausea. 
Honey's  not  sweet,  commended  as  cathartic. 
Such  ]iames  are  parchment  labels  upon  gems 
Hiding  their  color.     What  is  lovely  seen 
Priced  in  a  tarif  ? — lapis  lazuli. 
Such  bulk,  so  many  drachmas:  amethysts 
Quoted  at  so  much;  sapphires  higher  still. 
The  stone  like  solid  heaven  in  its  blueness 
Is  what  I  care  for,  not  its  name  or  jarice. 
So,  if  I  live  or  die  to  serve  my  friend, 
'Tis  for  my  love — 'tis  for  my  friend  alone. 
And  not  for  any  rate  that  friendship  bears 
In  heaven  or  on  earth.     jNTay,  I  romance — 
I  talk  of  Eoland  and  tlie  ancient  peers. 
In  me  'tis  hardly  friendship,  only  lack 
Of  a  substantial  self  that  holds  a  weight; 
So  I  kiss  larger  things  and  roll  with  them. 

Fedalma. 

Oh,  you  will  never  hide  your  soul  from  me; 
I've  seen  the  jewel's  flash,  and  know  'tis  there, 
Muffle  it  as  you  will.     That  foam-like  talk 
Will  not  wash  out  a  fear  which  blots  the  good 
Your  presence  brings  me.     Oft  I'm  pierced  afresh 
Through  all  the  pressure  of  my  selfish  griefs. 


436  THE    SPANISH    GYPSY. 

By  thought  of  you.     It  was  a  rash  resolve 
Made  you  disclose  yourself  wheu  you  kept  watch 
About  the  terrace  wall: — your  pity  leaped, 
Seeiug  alone  my  ills  and  not  yonr  loss. 
Self-doomed  to  exile.     Juan,  you  must  repent. 
^Tis  not  in  nature  that  resolve,  which  feeds 
On  strenuous  actions,  should  not  pine  and  die 
In  these  long  days  of  empty  listlessness. 

Juan. 

Eepent?    Not  I.     Repentance  is  the  weight 

Of  indigested  meals  ta'en  yesterday. 

'Tis  for  large  animals  that  gorge  on  prey. 

Not  for  a  honey-sipping  butterfly. 

I  am  a  thing  of  rhythm  and  redondillas — 

The  momentary  rainbow  on  the  spray 

Made  by  the  thundering  torrent  of  men's  lives: 

No  matter  whether  I  am  here  or  there; 

I  still  catch  sunbeams.     And  in  Africa, 

Where  melons  and  all  fruits,  they  say,  grow  large. 

Fables  are  real,  and  the  apes  polite, 

A  poet,  too,  may  prosper  past  belief: 

I  sball  grow  epic,  like  the  Florentine, 

And  sing  the  founding  of  our  infant  state, 

Sing  the  new  Gypsy  Carthage. 

Fedalma. 

Africa 
Would  we  were  there!    Under  another  heaven, 
In  lands  where  neither  love  nor  memory 
Can  plant  a  selfish  hope — in  lands  so  far 
I  should  not  seem  to  see  the  outstretched  arms 
That  seek  me,  or  to  hear  the  voice  that  calls. 
I  should  feel  distance  only  and  despair; 
So  rest  forever  from  the  tbought  of  bliss. 
And  wear  my  weight  of  life's  great  chain  unstruggling. 
Juan,  if  I  could  know  he  would  forget — 
Nay,  not  forget,  forgive  me — be  content 
That  I  forsook  him  for  no  joy,  but  sorrow. 
For  sorrow  chosen  rather  than  a  joy 
That  destiny  made  base!     Then  he  would  taste 
No  bitterness  in  sweet,  sad  memory. 
And  I  should  live  unblemished  in  his  thought, 
Hallowed  like  her  who  dies  an  ujiw^d  bride,  , 


THE   SPANISH   GYPSY.  437 

Our  words  have  wings,  but  fly  not  where  we  would. 
Could  mine  but  reach  him,  Juan! 

JUAN". 

Speak  the  wish — 
My  feet  have  wings— ^'11  be  your  Mercury. 
I  fear  no  shadowed  perils  by  the  way. 
No  man  will  wear  the  sharpness  of  his  sword 
On  me.     Nay,  Fm  a  herald  of  the  Muse, 
Sacred  for  Moors  and  Spaniards.     I  will  go — 
Will  fetch  you  tidings  for  an  amulet. 
But  stretch  not  hope  too  strongly  toward  that  mark 
As  issue  of  my  wandering.     Given,  I  cross 
Safely  the  Moorish  border,  reach  Bedmar: 
Fresh  counsels  may  prevail  there,  and  the  Duke 
Being  absent  in  the  field,  I  may  be  trapped. 
Men  who  are  sour  at  missing  larger  game 
May  wing  a  chattering  sparrow  for  revenge. 
It  is  a  chance  no  further  worth  the  note 
Than  as  a  warning,  lest  vou  feared  worse  ill 
If  my  return  were  stayed.     I  might  be  caged; 
They  would  not  harm  me  else.     Untimely  death, 
The  red  auxiliary  of  the  skeleton. 
Has  too  much  work  on  hand  to  think  of  me; 
Or,  if  he  cares  to  slay  me,  I  shall  fall 
Choked  with  a  grape-stone  for  economy. 
The  likelier  chance  is  that  I  go  and  come. 
Bringing  you  comfort  back. 


.«- 


Pedalma  {starts  from  her  seat  and  walhs  to  a  little  di. 
tance,  standing  a  feio  moments  with  her  back  toward 
Juan,  then  she  turns  round  quickly,  and  goes  toivard. 
him). 

No,  Juan,  no! 
Those  yearning  words  came  from  a  soul  infirm, 
Crying  and  struggling  at  the  pain  of  bonds 
Wiaich  yet  it  Avould  not  loosen.     He  knows  all — 
All  that  he  needs  to  know:  I  said  farewell: 
I  stepped  across  the  cracking  earth  and  knew 
^Twould  yawn  behind  me.     I  must  walk  right  on. 
No,  I  will  not  win  aught  by  risking  you: 
That  risk  would  poison  my  poor  hope.     Besides, 
^Twere  treachery  in  me:  my  father  wills 
That  we — all  here — should  rest  within  this  camp. 


438  THE   SPANISH   GYPSY. 

If  I  can  never  live,  like  liim,  on  faith 

In  glorious  morrows,  I  am  resolute. 

Wiiile  he  treads  painfully  with  stillest  step 

And  beady  brow,  pressed  ^neath  the  weight  of  arms. 

Shall  I,  to  ease  my  fevered  restlessness, 

Eaise  peevish  moans,  shattering  that  fragile  silence? 

No!     On  the  close-thronged  spaces  of  the  earth 

A  battle  rages:  Fate  has  carried  me 

^Mid  the  thick  arrows:  I  will  keep  my  stand — 

Not  shrink  and  let  the  shaft  pass  by  my  breast 

To  pierce  another.     Oh,  'tis  written  large 

The  thing  I  have  to  do.     But  you,  dear  Juan, 

Eenounce,  endure,  are  brave,  unurged  by  aught 

Save  the  sweet  overflow  of  your  good  will. 

{She  seats  her seJf  again.) 

Juan. 

Nay,  I  endure  naught  worse  than  napping  sheep 

When  nimble  birds  uproot  a  fleecy  lock 

To  line  their  nest  with.    See!  your  bondsman,  queen, 

The  minstrel  of  your  court,  is  featherless; 

Deforms  your  presence  by  a  moulting  garb; 

Shows  like  a  roadside  bush  culled  of  its  buds. 

Yet,  if  your  graciousness  will  not  disdain 

A  poor  plucked  songster — shall  he  sing  to  you? 

Some  lay  of  afternoons— some  ballad  strain 

Of  those  who  ached  once  but  are  sleeping  now 

Under  the  sun- warmed  flowers?   'Twill  cheat  the  time. 

Fedalma. 

Thanks,  Juan — later,  when  this  hour  is  passed. 
My  soul  is  clogged  with  self;  it  could  not  float 
On  with  the  pleasing  sadness  of  your  song. 
Leave  me  in  this  green  spot,  but  come  again, — 
Come  with  the  lengthening  shadows. 

Juan. 

Then  your  slave 
Will  go  to  chase  the  robbers.     Queen,  farewell ! 

Fedalma. 
Best  friend,  my  well-spring  in  the  wilderness! 


THE    SPANISH    GYPSY.  439 

[While  Juan  sped  along  the  stream,  there  came 
From  the  dark  tents  a  ringing  joyous  shout 
That  thrilled  Fedalma  with  a  summons  grave 
Yet  welcome,  too.     Straightway  she  rose  and  stood. 
All  languor  banished,  with  a  soul  suspense. 
Like  one  who  waits  high  presence,  listening. 
Was  it  a  message,  or  her  father's  self 
That  made  the  camp  so  glad? 

It  was  himself ! 
She  saw  him  now  advancing,  girt  with  arms 
That  seemed,  like  idle  troijliies  hung  for  show 
Beside  the  weight  and  fire  of  living  strength 
That  made  his  fame.    He  glanced  with  absent  triumph 
As  one  who  conquers  in  some  field  afar 
And  bears  off  unseen  spoil.     But  nearing  her. 
His  terrible  eyes  intense  sent  forth  new  rays — 
A  sudden  sunshine  where  the  lightning  was 
^Twixt  meeting  dark.     All  tenderly  he  laid 
His  hand  upon  her  shoulder;  tenderly,        ^  - 
His  kiss  upon  her  brow.  ] 

Zakca. 

My  royal  daughter! 

Fedalma. 
Father,  I  Joy  to  see  your  safe  return. 

Zarca. 

Nay,  I  but  stole  the  time,  as  hungry  men 

Steal  from  the  morrow's  meal,  made  a  forced  march. 

Left  Hassan  us  my  watchdog,  all  to  see 

My  daughter,  and  to  feed  her  famished  hope 

With  news  of  promise. 

Fedalma. 

Is  the  task  achieved 
That  was  to  be  the  herald  of  our  flight? 

Zarca. 

Not  outwardly,  but  to  my  inward  vision 
Things  are  achieved  when  they  ai"e  well  begun. 
The  perfect  atcher  calls  the  deer  his  own 


440  THE    SPANISH    GYPSY. 


While  yet  tlie  shaft  is  whistling.     His  keen  eye 

Never  sees  failure,  sees  the  mark  alone. 

You  have  heard  naught,  then— had  no  messenger? 

Fedalma. 

I,  father?  no:  each  quiet  day  has  fled 

Like  the  same  moth,  returning  with  slow  Aving, 

And  pausing  in  the  sunshine. 

Zarca. 

It  is  well. 
You  shall  not  long  count  days  in  weariness. 
Ere  the  full  moon  has  waned  again  to  new, 
We  shall  reach  Almeria:  Berber  ships 
Will  take  us  for  their  freight,  and  we  shall  go 
AVith  plenteous  spoil,  not  stolen,  bravely  won 
By  service  done  on  Spaniards.     Do  you  shrink? 
Are  you  aught  less  than  a  true  Zincala? 

Fedalma. 
No;  but  I  am  more.     The  Spaniards  fostered  me. 

Zaeca. 

They  stole  you  tirst,  and  reared  you  for  the  flames. 
I  found  you,  rescued  you,  that  yon  might  live 
A  Zincala's  life;  I  saved  you  from  their  doom. 
Your  bridal  bed  had  been  the  rack. 

Fedalma  {in  a  low  tone). 

They  meant- 
To  seize  me? — ere  he  came? 

Zarca. 

Yes,  I  know  all. 
They  found  your  chamber  empty. 

Fedalma  {eagerly). 

Then  you  know- 

[Checking  herself.) 

Father,  my  soul  would  be  less  laggard,  fed 
With  fuller  trust.  • 


THE   fcJPANlSH   GYPSY.  .  -iil 

Zaeca, 

My  daughter,  I  must  keep 
The  Arab's  secret.     Arabs  are  our  friends. 
Grappling  for  life  with  Christians  who  lay  waste 
Granada's  valleys,  and  with  devilish  hoofs 
Trample  the  young  green  corn,  with  devilish  play 
Fell  blossomed  trees,  and  tear  up  well-pruned  vines: 
Cruel  as  tigers  to  the  vanquished  brave, 
They  wring  out  gold  by  oaths  they  mean  to  break; 
Take  pay  for  pity  and  are  pitiless; 
Then  tinkle  bells  above  the  desolate  earth 
And  praise  their  monstrous  gods,  supposed  to  love 
The  flattery  of  liars.     I  will  strike 
The  full-gorged  dragon.     You,  my  child,  must  watch 
The  battle  with  a  heart,  not  fluttering 
But  duteous,  firm-weighted  by  resolve. 
Choosing  between  two  lives,  like  her  who  holds 
A  dagger  which  must  pierce  one  of  two  breasts. 
And  one  of  them  her  father's.     You  divine — 
I  speak  not  closely,  but  in  parables; 
Put  one  for  many. 

Fedalma  {collecting  herself  and  looking  firmly  at  Zarca). 

Then  it  is  your  will 
That  I  ask  nothing? 

Zarca. 

You  shall  know  enough 
To  trace  the  sequence  of  the  seed  and  flower. 
El  Zagal  trusts  me,  rates  my  counsel  liigh: 
He.  knowing  I  have  won  a  grant  of  lands 
Within  the  Berber's  realm,  wills  me  to  be 
The  tongue  of  his  good  cause  in  Africa, 
So  gives  us  furtherance  in  our  pilgrimage 
For  service  hoiked,  as  well  as  service  done 
In  that  great  feat  of  which  I  am  tlie  eye, 
ATid  my  five  hundred  Gypsies  th(!  best  arm. 
More,  I  am  cliargod  by  other  noble  Moors 
With  messages  of  weight  to  Telemsan. 
Ha,  your  eye  flashes.     Are  you  glad? 


Fedalma. 
That  men  can  greatly  trust  a  Zincala. 


Yes,  glad 


4:4:2  THE    SPANISH    GYPSY. 


Zarga. 


Why,  fighting  for  dear  life  men  choose  their  swords 
For  cutting  only,  not  for  ornament. 
What  nanght  but  Nature  gives,  man  takes  periorce 
Where  she  bestows  it,  though  in  vilest  place. 
Can  he  compress  invention  out  of  pride, 
Make  heirship  do  the  work  of  muscle,  sail 
Toward  great  discoveries  with  a  pedigree? 
Sick  men  ask  cures,  and  Nature  serves  not  hers 
Daintily  as  a  feast.     A  blacksmith  once 
Founded  a  dynasty,  and  raised  on  high 
The  leathern  apron  over  armies  spread 
Between  the  mountains  like  a  lake  of  steel. 

Fedalma  {hitterly). 

To  be  contemned,  then,  is  fair  augury. 
That  pledge  of  future  good  at  least  is  ours. 

Zarca. 

Let  men  contemn  us:  'tis  such  blind  contempt 

That  leaves  the  winged  broods  to  thrive  in  warmth 

Unheeded,  till  they  fill  the  air  like  storms 

So  we  shall  thrive — still  darkly  shall  draw  force 

Into  a  new  and  multitudinous  life 

That  likeness  fashions  to  community. 

Mother  divine  of  customs,  faith  and  laws. 

'Tis  ripeness,  'tis  fame's  zenith  that  kills  hope. 

Huge  oaks  are  dying,  forests  yet  to  come 

Lie  in  the  twigs  and  rotten-seeming  seeds. 

Fedalma. 

And  our  wild  Zincali?    'Neath  their  rough  husk 
Can  you  discern  such  seed?    You  said  our  band 
Was  the  best  arm  of  some  hard  enterprise; 
They  give  out  sparks  of  virtue,  then,  and  show 
There's  metal  in  their  earth  ? 

Zarca. 

Ay,  metal  fine 
In  my  brave  Gypsies.     Not  the  lithest  Moor 
Has  lither  limbs  for  scaling,  keener  eye 
To  mark  the  meaning  of  the  furthest  speck 
That  tells  of  ohange;  and  they  are  disciplined 


THE    SPANISH    GYPSY.  443 

By  faith  in  me,  to  such  obedience 
As  needs  no  spy.     My  scalers  and  my  scouts 
Are  to  the  Moorish  force  they're  leagued  withal 
As  bow-string  to  the  bow;  while  I  their  chief 
Command  the  enterprise  and  guide  the  will 
Of  Moorish  captains,  as  the  pilot  guides 
With  eye-instructed  hand  the  passive  helm. 
For  high  device  is  still  the  highest  force. 
And  he  who  holds  the  seci-et  of  the  wheel 
May  make  the  rivers  do  what  work  he  would. 
With  thoughts  impalpable  we  clutch  men's  souls, 
Weaken  the  joints  of  armies,  make  them  fly 
Like  dust  and  leaves  before  the  viewless  wind. 
Tell  me  what's  mirrored  in  the  tiger's  heart, 
I'll  rule  that  too. 

Fedalma  {wrought  to  a  glow  of  admiratmi). 

0  my  imjDerial  father! 
'Tis  where  there  breathes  a  mighty  soul  like  yours 
That  men's  contempt  is  of  good  augury. 

Zarca  {seizing  both  Fedalma's  hands,  and  looking  at 
her  searchingly). 

And  you,  my  daughter,  what  are  you — if  not 

The  Zincala's  child?     Say,  does  not  his  great  hope 

Thrill  in  your  veins  like  shouts  of  victory? 

'Tis  a  vile  life  that  like  a  garden  pool 

Lies  stagnant  in  the  round  of  personal  loves; 

That  has  no  ear  save  for  the  tickling  lute 

Set  to  small  measures — deaf  to  all  the  beats 

Of  that  large  music  rolling  o'er  the  world: 

A  miserable,  petty  low-roofed  life. 

That  knows  the  mighty  orbits  of  the  skies 

Through  naught  save  light  or  dark  in  its  own  cabin. 

The  very  brutes  will  feel  the  force  of  kind 

And  move  together,  gathering  a  new  soul — 

The  soul  of  multitudes.     Say  now,  my  child, 

You  will  not  falter,  not  look  back  and  long 

For  unfledged  ease  in  some  soft  alien  nest. 

The  crane  with  outspread  wing  that  heads  the  file 

Pauses  not,  feels  no  backward  impulses: 

Behind  it  summer  was,  and  is  no  more; 

Before  it  lies  the  summer  it  will  reach 

Or  perish  in  mid-ocean.     You  no  less 


444  THE  sPAXisn  gypsy. 

Must  feel  the  force  sublime  of  growing  life. 

New  thoughts  are  urgent  as  the  growth  of  wings; 

The  widening  vision  is  imjjerious 

As  higher  members  bursting  the  worm's  sheath. 

You  cannot  grovel  in  the  worm's  delights: 

You  must  take  winged  pleasures,  winged  pains. 

Are  you  not  steadfast?     AVill  you  live  or  die 

For  aught  bolow  your  royal  heritage? 

To  him  who  holds  the  flickering  brief  torch 

That  lights  a  beacon  for  the  perishing, 

Aught  else  is  crime.     Would  you  let  drop  the  torch? 

Fedalma. 

Father,  my  soul  is  weak,  the  mist  of  tears 

Still  rises  to  my  eyes,  and  hides  the  goal 

Which  to  your  undimmed  sight  is  fixed  and  clear. 

But  if  I  cannot  plant  resolve  on  hope. 

It  will  stand  firm  on  certainty  of  woe. 

I  choose  the  ill  that  is  most  like  to  end 

With  my  poor  being.     Hopes  have  precarious  life. 

They  are  oft  blighted,  withered,  snapped  sheer  off 

In  vigorous  growth  and  turned  to  rottenness. 

But  faithfulness  can  feed  on  suffering, 

And  knows  no  disappointment.     Trust  in  me! 

If  it  were  needed,  this  poor  trembling  hand 

Should  grasp  the  torch — strive  not  to  let  it  fall 

Though  it  were  burning  down  close  to  my  flesh. 

No  beacon  lighted  yet:  through  the  damp  dark 

I  should  still  hear  the  cry  of  gasping  swimmers. 

Father,  I  will  be  true! 

Zaeca. 

I  trust  that  word. 
And,  for  your  sadnecs — you  are  young — the  bruise 
Will  leave  no  mark.     The  worst  of  misery 
Is  when  a  nature  framed  for  noblest  things 
Condemns  itself  in  youth  to  petty  Joys, 
And,  sore  athirst  for  air,  breathes  scanty  life 
Gasping  from  out  the  shallows.     You  are  saved 
From  such  poor  doubleness.     The  life  we  choose 
Bi'eathes  hio-b,  and  sees  a  fall-arched  firmament. 
Our  deeds  shall  speak  like  rock-hewn  messages. 
Teaching  great  purpose  to  the  distant  time. 
Now  I  must  hasten  back.     I  shall  but  speak 


THE    SPANISH    GYPSY.  445 

To  Nadar  of  the  order  he  must  keep 
In  setting  watch  and  victualing.     The  stars 
And  the  young  moon  must  see  me  at  my  post. 
Nay,  rest  you  here.     Farewell,  my  younger  self — 
Strong-hearted  daughter!     Shall  I  live  in  you 
When  the  earth  covers  me? 

Fedalma. 

My  father,  death 
Should  give  your  will  divineness,  make  it  strong 
With  the  beseechings  of  a  mighty  soul 
That  left  its  work  unfinished.     Kiss  me  now: 

{They  embrace,  and  she  adds  tremulously  as  they  part,) 

And  when  you  see  fair  hair,  be  pitiful. 

{Exit  V.kKCA.) 

(Fedalma  seats  herself  on  the  hank,  leans  her  head  for- 
ward, and  covers  her  face  with  her  drapery.  While  she 
is  seated  thus,  Hinda  co7nes  from  the  bank,  with  a 
branch  of  musk  roses  in  her  hand.  Seeing  Fedalma 
with  head  bent  and  covered,  she  pauses,  and  begins  to 
move  on  tiptoe.) 

HiNDA. 

Our  Queen!     Can  she  be  crying?    There  she  sits 
As  I  did  every  day  when  my  dog  Saad 
Sickened  and  yelled,  and  seemed  to  yell  so  loud 
After  we  buried  him,  I  oped  his  grave. 

{8he  comes  for IV ard  on  tiptoe,  kneels  at  Fedalma'S /ee^, 
and  embraces  them.     Fedalma  uncovers  her  head.) 

Fedalma. 
Hinda!  what  is  it? 

Hinda. 

Queen,  a  branch  of  roses — 
So  sweet,  you'll  love  to  smell  them.    'Twas  the  last. 
I  climbed  the  bank  to  get  it  before  Tralla, 
And   slipped   and  scratched  my  arm.      But   I   don't 
mind. 
•        You  love  the  roses — so  do  I.     I  wish 


446  THE   SPANISH    GYPSY. 

The  sky  would  rain  down  roses,  as  they  ram 
From  off  the  shaken  bush.     Why  will  it  not? 
Then  all  the  valley  would  be  pink  and  white 
And  soft  to  tread  on.     They  would  fall  as  light 
As  feathers.  smelJing  sweet;  and  it  would  be 
Like  sleeping  and  yet  waking,  all  at  once! 
Over  the  sea.  Queen,  where  we  soon  shall  go. 
Will  it  rain  roses? 

Fedalma. 

No,  my  prattler,  no! 
It  never  will  rain  roses:  when  we  want 
To  have  more  roses  we  must  plant  more  trees. 
But  you  want  nothing,  little  one — the  world 
Just  suits  you  as  it  suits  the  tawny  squirrels. 
Come,  you  want  nothing. 

HiNDA. 

Yes,  I  want  more  berries—^ 
Eed  ones — to  wind  about  my  neck  and  arms 
When  I  am  married — on  my  ankles,  too, 
I  want  to  wind  red  berries,  and  on  my  head. 

Fedalma. 
Who  is  it  you  are  fond  of?    Tell  me,  now. 

HlNDA. 

0  Queen,  you  know!     It  could  be  no  one  else 
But  Ismael.     He  catches  all  the  birds, 
Knows  where  the  speckled  fish  are,  scales  the  rocks. 
And  sings  and  dances  with  me  when  I  like. 
How  should  I  marry  and  not  marry  him? 

Fedalma, 

Should  you  have  loved  him,  had  he  been  a  Moor, 
Or  white  Castilian? 

HiNDA  {starting  to  her  feet,  then  kneeling  again). 

Are  you  angry,  queen? 
Say  why  you  will  think  shame  of  your  poor  Hinda? 
She'd  sooner  be  a  rat  and  hang  on  thorns 
To  parch  until  the  wind  bad  scattered  her. 
Than  be  an  outcast,  spit  at  by  her  tribe. 


THE   SPANISH    GYPSY.  44? 


Fedalma. 


I  think  no  evil — am  not  angry,  child. 

But  would  you  part  from  Ismael  ?     Leave  him  now 

If  your  chief  bade  you — said  it  Avas  for  good 

To  all  your  tribe  that  you  must  part  from  him? 

HiNDA  [giving  a  sharp  cry). 
Ah,  will  he  say  so? 

Fedalma  {almost  fierce  in  her  earnestness). 

Nay,  child,  answer  me. 
Could  you  leave  Ismael?  get  into  a  boat 
And  see  the  waters  widen  'twixt  you  two 
Till  all  was  water  and  you  saw  him  not, 
And  knew  that  you  would  never  see  him  more? 
If  'twas  your  chief's  command,  and  if  lie  said 
Your  tribe  would  all  be  slaughtered,  die  of  plague. 
Of  famine — madly  drink  each  other's  blood 

HixDA  [trembling). 

0  Queen,  if  it  is  so,  tell  Ismael. 

Fedalma. 
You  would  obey,  then?  part  from  him  forever? 

Hi]srDA. 

How  could  we  live  else?  With  our  brethren  lost? 
No  marriage  feast?  The  day  would  turn  to  dark. 
A  Zincala  cannot  live  without  her  tribe. 

1  must  obey!     Poor  Ismael! — poor  Hinda! 
But  will  it  ever  be  so  cold  and  dark? 

Oh,  I  would  sit  upon  the  rocks  and  cry. 
And  cry  so  long  that  I  could  cry  no  more: 
Then  T  should  go  to  sleep. 

Fedalma. 

No,  Hinda,  no! 
Thou  never  shalt  be  called  to  wrt  from  him. 
I  will  have  berries  for  thee,  red  and  black, 
And  I  will  be  so  glad  to  see  thee  glad, 
That  earth  will  seem  to  hold  enough  of  joy' 
To  outweigh  all  the  pangs  of  those  who  part. 


448  THE    Sl'AXlSll    GYPSY. 

Be  comforted,  brigbt  eyes.     See,  I  will  tie 
These  roses  in  a  crown,  for  thee  to  wear, 

HiNDA  {dapping  her  hands,  while  'Fbba'lma  puts  the  roses 

on  her  head). 

Oh,  I^in  cis  glad  as  many  little  foxes — 
I  will  find  Ismael,  and  tell  him  all. 

{She  runs  off.) 

Fedalma  {alone). 

She  has  the  strength  I  lack.     Within  her  world 

The  dial  has  not  stirred  since  first  she  woke: 

No  changing  light  has  made  the  shadows  die. 

And  taught  her  trusting  soul  sad  difference. 

For  her,  good,  right,  and  law  are  all  summed  up 

In  what  is  possible:  life  is  one  web 

Where  love,  jo}-,  kindred,  and  obedience 

Lie  fast  and  even,  in  one  warp  and  woof 

With  thirst  and  drinking,  hunger,  food,  and  sleep. 

She  knows  no  struggles,  sees  no  double  path: 

Her  fate  is  freedom,  for  her  will  is  one 

With  her  own  people's  law,  the  only  law 

She  ever  knew.     Forme  —  I  have  fire  within. 

But  on  my  will  there  falls  the  chilling  snow 

Of  thoughts  that  come  as  siibtly  as  soft  flakes. 

Yet  press  at  last  with  hard  and  icy  weight. 

I  could  be  firm,  could  give  myself  the  wrench 

And  walk  erect,  hiding  my  life-long  wound. 

If  I  but  saw  the  fruit  of  all  my  pain 

With  that  strong  vision  Avhich  commands  the  soul. 

And  makes  great  awe  the  monarch  of  desire. 

But  now  I  totter,  seeing  no  far  goal: 

I  tread  the  rocky  pas?,  and  pause  and  grasp. 

Guided  by  flashes.     When  my  father  comes. 

And  breathes  into  my  soul  his  generous  hope  — 

By  his  own  greatness  making  life  seem  great. 

As  the  clear  heavens  bring  sublimity, 

And  show  earth  larger,  spanned  by  that  blue  vast  — 

Resolve  is  strong:  I  can  embrace  my  sorrow, 

ISTor  nicely  weigli  the  fruit;  possessed  with  need 

Solely  to  do  the  noblest,  though  it  failed  — 

Though  lava  streamed  upon  my  breathing  deed 

And  buried  it  in  night  and  barrenness. 

But  soon  the  glow  dies  out,  the  trumpet  strain 


THE   SPAXISH   GYPSY.  449 

I 

That  vibrated  as  strength  through  all  my  limbs 

Is  heard  no  longer;  over  the  wide  scene 

There's  naught  but  chill  gray  silence,  or  the  hum 

And  fitful  discord  of  a  vulgar  world. 

Then  I  sink  helpless — sink  into  the  arms 

Of  all  sweet  memories,  and  dream  of  bliss: 

See  looks  that  penetrate  like  tones;  hear  tones 

That  flash  looks  with  them.     Even  now  I  feel 

Soft  airs  enwrap  me,  as  if  yearning  rays 

Of  some  soft  presence  touched  me  with  their  warmth 

And  brought  a  tender  murmuring 

[While  she  mused, 
A  figure  came  from  out  the  olive  trees 
That  bent  close-whispering  'twixt  the  parted  hills 
Beyond  the  crescent  of  thick  cactus:  paused 
At  sight  of  her;  then  slowly  forward  moved 
With  careful  steps,  and  gently  said,  "Fedalma!  " 
Fearing  lest  fancy  had  enslaved  her  sense. 
She  quivered,  rose,  but  turned  not.     Soon  again: 
Fedalma,  it  is  Stlva!"     Then  she  turned. 
He,  with  bared  head  and  arms  entreating,  beamed 
Like  morning  on  her.     Vision  held  her  still 
One  moment,  then  with  gliding  motion  swift. 
Inevitable  as  the  melting  stream's, 
She  found  her  rest  within  his  circling  arms.] 

Fedalma. 
0  love,  you  are  living,  and  believe  in  me! 

Don  Silva. 

Once  more  we  are  together.     Wishing  dies — 
Stifled  with  bliss. 

Fedalma. 

You  (lid  not  hate  me,  then — 
Think  me  an  ingrate — think  my  love  was  small 
That  I  forsook  you? 

Dox  Silva. 

Dear,  I  trusted  you 
As  holy  men  trust  God,     You  could  do  naught 
That  was  not  pure  and  loving — thougli  the  deed 
29 


450  THE    SPANISH    GYPSY. 

Might  pierce  me  unto  death.     You  had  less  trust. 
Since  you  suspected  mine.     ^Twas  wicked  doubt. 

Fed  ALMA. 

Nay,  when  I  saw  you  hating  me,  the  fault 
Seemed  in  my  lot — my  bitter  birthright — hers 
On  whom  you  lavished  all  your  wealth  of  love 
As  price  of  naught  hut  sorrow.     Then  I  said, 
"  'Tis  better  so.     He  will  be  happier!" 

But  soon  that  thought,  struggling  to  be  a  hope. 
Would  end  in  tears. 

Don  Silva. 

It  Avas  a  cruel  thought. 
Happier!    True  misery  is  not  begun 
Until  I  cease  to  love  thee. 

Fedalma. 

Silva! 

Don  Silva. 

Mine! 

{They  stand  a  moment  or  two  in  silence.) 

Fedalma. 

I  thought  I  had  so  much  to  tell  you,  love — 
Long  eloquent  stories — how  it  all  befell — 
The  solemn  message,  calling  mc  away 
To  awful  spousals,  where  my  own  dead  joy, 
A  conscious  ghost,  looked  on  and  saw  me  wed. 

Don  Silva. 

* 

Oh,  that  grave  speech  would  cumber  our  quick  souls 
Like  bells  that  waste  the  moments  with  their  loudness. 

Fedalma. 

And  if  it  all  were  said,  ^twould  end  in  this. 
That  I  still  loved  you  when  T  fled  away. 
^Tis  no  more  wisdom  than  the  little  birds 
Make  known  by  their  soft  twitter  when  they  feel 
Each  other's  heart  beat. 


the  spanish  gypsy.  451 

Don  Silva. 

All  the  deepest  things 
We  now  say  with  our  eyes  and  meeting  pulse; 
Our  voices  need  but  prattle. 

Fedalma. 

I  forget 
All  the  drear  days  of  thirst  in  this  one  draught. 

{Again  they  are  silent  for  a  few  moments.) 

But  tell  me  how  you  came?     Where  are  your  guards? 
Is  there  no  risk?     And  now  I  look  at  you. 
This  garb  is  strange 

Don  Silva. 

I  came  alone 

Fbdalma. 

Alone? 

Don  Silva. 

Yes — jfied  in  secret.     There  was  no  way  else 
To  find  you  safely. 

'Fedalma  {letting  o?ie  hand  fall  and  moving  a  little  from 
him  With  a  look  of  sudden  terror,  while  he  clasps  her 
more  firmly  by  the  other  arm). 

Silva! 

Don  Silva. 

It  is  naught. 
Enough  that  I  am  here,     Now  Ave  will  cling. 
What  power  shall  hinder  us?     You  left  me  once 
To  set  your  father  free.     That  task  is  doue, 
And  you  are  mine  again.     I  have  braved  all 
That  I  might  find  you,  see  your  father,  win 
His  furtherance  in  bearing  you  away 
To  some  safe  refuge.     Are  we  not  betrothed? 

Fedalma. 
Oh,  I  am  trembling  'neath  the  rush  of  tlioughts 


452  THE    SPANISH    GYPSY. 

That  come  like  griefs  at  morning — look  at  me 
With  awful  faces,  from  the  vanishing  haze 
That  momently  had  hidden  them. 

Don  Silt  a. 

What  thoughts? 

Fedalma. 

Forgotten  burials.     There  lies  a  grave 
Between  this  visionary  present  and  the  past. 
Our  joy  is  dead,  and  only  smiles  on  us 
A  loving  shade  from  out  the  place  of  tombs. 

Don  Silva. 

Your  love  is  faint,  else  aught  that  parted  us 
Would  seem  but  superstition.     Love  supreme 
Defies  dream-terrors — risks  avenging  fires. 
I  have  risked  all  things.     But  your  love  is  faint. 

Fedalma  {retreating  a  little,  hut  keeping  his  hand). 

Silva,  if  now  between  us  came  a  sword. 
Severed  my  arm,  and  left  our  two  hands  clasped, 
This  poor  maimed  arm  would  feel  the  clasp  till  death. 
What  parts  us  is  a  sword 

(Zarca  has  been  advancing  in  the  hachjronnd.  He  has 
draiun  his  sioord.  and  now  thrusts  the  naked  Made  betiueen 
them.  Don  Silva  lets  go  Fedalma's  hand,  and  grasps 
his  sword.  Fedalma,  startled  at  first,  stands  firmly, 
as  if  prepared  to  interpose  bettoeen  her  Father  and  tlie 
DuTce.) 

Zarca. 

Ay,  'tis  a  sword 
That  parts  the  Spaniard  and  the  Zincala: 
A  sword  tliat  was  baptized  in  Christian  blood. 
When  once  a  band,  cloaking  with  Spanish  law 
Their  brutal  rapine,  Avould  have  butchered  us. 
And  outraged  then  our  women. 

{Resting  the  point  of  his  sword  on  the  ground. ) 

My  lord  Duke, 
I  was  a  gupst  within  your  fortress  once 


THE   SPANISH   GYPSY,  450 

Against  my  will;  had  entertaiument  too — 

Much  like  a  galley-slave's.     Pray,  have  you  sought 

The  Zincala's  camp  to  find  a  fit  return 

For  that  Castilian  courtesy?  or  rather 

To  make  amends  for  all  our  prisoned  toil 

By  free  bestowal  of  your  presence  here? 

DOK  SiLVA. 

Chief,  I  have  brought  no  scorn  to  meet  your  scorn. 
I  came  because  love  urged  me — that  deep  love 
I  bear  to  her  whom  you  call  daughter — her 
Whom  I  reclaim  as  my  betrothed  bride. 

Zarca. 

Doubtless  you  bring  for  final  argument 
Your  men-at-arms  who  will  escort  your  bride? 

Don  Silva. 

I  came  alone.     The  only  force  I  bring 
Is  tenderness.     Nay,  I  will  trust  besides 
In  all  the  pleadings  of  a  father's  care 
To  wed  his  daughter  as  her  nurture  bids. 
And  for  your  tribe — whatever  purposed  good 
Your  thoughts  may  cherish,  I  will  make  secure 
With  the  strong  surety  of  a  noble's  power; 
My  wealth  shall  be  your  treasury. 

Zarca  {ivith  irony). 

My  thanks! 
To  me  you  offer  liberal  price;  for  her 
Your  love's  beseeching  will  be  force  supreme. 
She  will  go  with  you  as  a  willing  slave. 
Will  give"  a  word  of  parting  to  her  fatlier, 
Wave  farewells  to  her  tribe,  then  turn  and  say^ 
Now,  my  lord,  I  am  nothing  but  your  bride; 
I  am  quite  culled,  have  neither  root  nor  trunk. 
Now  wear  me  with  your  plume  I  " 


>' " 


Don  Silva. 

Yours  is  the  wrong 
Feigning  in  me  one  thought  of  her  below 
The  highest  homage.     I  would  make  my  rank 
The  pedestal  of  her  wortli:  a  noble's  sword. 


454  THE    SPANISH    GYPSY. 

A  noble's  honor,  her  defense;  his  love 
The  life-long  sanctuary  of  her  womanhood. 

Zarca. 

I  tell  you,  were  you  King  of  Aragon, 

And  won  my  daughter's  hand,  your  higher  rank 

Would  blacken  her  dishonor.     'Twere  excuse 

If  you  were  beggared,  homeless,  spit  upon. 

And  so  made  even  with  her  people's  lot; 

For  then  she  would  be  lured  by  want,  not  wealth. 

To  be  a  wife  amongst  an  alien  race 

To  whom  her  tribe  owes  curses. 

Don  Silva. 

Such  blind  hate 
Is  fit  for  beasts  of  prey,  but  not  for  men. 
My  hostile  acts  against  you,  should  but  count 
As  ignorant  strokes  against  a  friend  unknownj 
And  for  the  wrongs  inflicted  on  your  tribe 
By  Spanish  edicts  or  the  cruelty 
Of  Spanish  vassals,  am  I  criminal? 
Love  comes  to  cancel  all  ancestral  hate, 
Subdues  all  heritage,  proves  that  in  mankind 
Union  is  deeper  than  division. 

Zarca. 

^^'    . 
Such  love  is  common:  I  have  seen  it  oft — 

Seen  many  women  rend  the  sacred  ties 

That  bind  them  in  high  fellowship  with  men. 

Making  them  mothers  of  a  people's  virtue: 

Seen  them  so  leveled  to  a  handsome  steed 

That  yesterday  was  Moorish  property. 

To-day  is  Christian — wears  new-fashioned  gear. 

Neighs  to  new  feeders,  and  will  prance  alike 

Under  all  banners,  so  the  banner  be 

A  master's  who  caresses.     Such  light  change 

You  call  conversion;  but  we  Zincali  call 

Conversion  infamy.     Our  people's  faith_ 

Is  faithfulness;  not  the  rote-learned  belief 

That  we  are  heaven's  highest  favorites. 

But  the  resolve  that  being  most  forsaken 

Among  the  sons  of  men,  we  will  be  true 

Each  to  the  other,  and  our  common  lot. 


THE    SPANISH    GYPSY.  455 

You  Clirisfcians  burn  men  for  their  heresy: 
Our  vilest  heretic  is  that  Zincala 
Who,  choosing  ease,  forsakes  her  people's  woes. 
The  dowry  of  my  daughter  is  to  be 
Chief  woman  of  her  tribe,  and  rescue  it. 
A  bride  with  such  a  dowry  has  no  match 
Among  the  subjects  of  that  Catholic  Queen 
Who  would  have  Gypsies  swept  into  the  sea 
Or  else  would  have  them  gibbeted. 

Don  Silva. 

And  you, 
Fedalma's  father — you  who  claim  the  dues 
Of  fatherhood — Avill  offer  up  her  youth 
To  mere  grim  idols  of  your  phantasy! 
Worse  than  all  Pagans,  with  no  oracle 
To  bid  you  murder,  no  sure  good  to  win. 
Will  sacrifice  your  daughter — to  no  god. 
But  to  a  ravenous  fire  within  your  soul. 
Mad  hopes,  blind  hate,  that  like  possessing  fiends 
Shriek  at  a  name!     This  sweetest  virgin,  reared 
As  garden  flowers,  to  give  the  sordid  world 
Glimpses  of  perfectness,  you  snatch  and  thrust 
On  dreary  Avilds;  in  visions  mad  proclaim 
Semiramis  of  Gypsy  wanderers; 
Doom,  with  a  broken  arrow  in  her  heart. 
To  wait  for  death  'mid  squalid  savages: 
For  what?    You  would  be  savior  of  your  tribe; 
So  said  Fedalma's  letter;  rather  say, 
You  have  the  will  to  save  by  ruling  men. 
But  first  to  rule;  and  with  that  flinty  will 
You  cut  your  way,  though  the  first  cut  you  give 
Gash  your  child's  bosom. 

{While  Don  Silva  has  been  speaking,  iviih  y  rowing  pas- 
sion, Fedalma  has  2)laced  hei'self  between  him  and  Iter 
father. ) 

Zarca  {with  calm  irony). 

You  are  loud,  my  lord! 
You  only  are  the  reasonable  man; 
You  have  a  heart,  I  none.     Fedalma's  good 
Is  what  you  see,  you  care  for;  while  I  seek 
No  good,  not  even  my  own,  urged  on  by  naught 
But'hellish  hunger,  which  must  still  be  fed 


456  THE    SPAXISH    GYPSY. 

Though  in  the  feeding  it  I  suffer  throes. 

Fume  at  your  own  opinion  as  you  will: 

I  speak  not  now  to  you,  but  to  my  daughter. 

If  she  still  calls  it  good  to  mate  with  you. 

To  be  a  Spanish  duchess,  kneel  at  court. 

And  hope  her  beauty  is  excuse  to  men 

When  women  whisper,  ''A  mere  Zincala!" 

If  she  still  calls  it  good  to  take  a  lot 

That  measures  joy  for  her  as  she  forgets 

Her  kindred  and  her  kindred's  misery. 

Nor  feels  the  softness  of  her  downy  couch 

Marred  by  remembrance  that  she  once  forsook 

The  place  that  she  was  born  to — let  lier  go! 

If  life  for  her  still  lies  in  alien  love. 

That  forces  her  to  shut  her  soul  from  truth 

As  men  in  shameful  pleasures  shut  out  day; 

And  death,  for  her,  is  to  do  rarest  deeds. 

Which,  even  failing,  leave  new  faith  to  men. 

The  faith  in  human  hearts— then  let  her  go! 

She  is  my  only  offspring;  in  her  veins 

She  bears  the  blood  her  tribe  has  trusted  in; 

Her  heritage  is  their  obedience. 

And  if  I  died  she  might  still  lead  them  forth 

To  plant  the  race  hef  lover  now  reviles 

Where  they  may  make  a  nation,  and  may  rise 

To  grander  manhood  than  his  race  can  show; 

Then  live  a  goddess  sanctifying  oaths. 

Enforcing  right,  and  ruling  consciences. 

By  law  deep-graven  in  exalting  deeds, 

Througli  the  long  ages  of  her  people's  life. 

If  she  can  leave  that  lot  for  silken  shame. 

For  kisses  honeyed  by  oblivion — 

The  bliss  of  drunkards  or  the  blank  of  fools — 

Then  let  her  go!     You  Spanish  Catholics, 

When  you  are  cruel,  base  and  treacherous. 

For  ends  not  pious,  tender  gifts  to  God, 

And  for  men's  wounds  offer  much  oil  to  churches: 

We  have  no  altars  for  such  liealing  gifts 

As  soothe  the  heavens  for  outrage  done  ou  earth. 

We  have  no  priesthood  and  no  creed  to  teach 

That  she— the  Zincala— who  might  save  her  race 

And  yet  abandons  it,  may  cleanse  that  blot. 

And  mend  the  curse  her  life  has  been  to  men. 

By  saving  her  own  soul.     Her  one  base  choice 

Is  wrong  unchangeable,  is  poison  shed 


THE    SPANISH    GYPSY.  457 

Where  men  must  drink,  shed  by  her  poisoning  will. 
Now  choose,  Fedalma! 

[But  her  choice  Avas  made. 
Slowly,  while  yet  her  father  spoke,  she  moved 
From  where  oblique  with  deprecating  arms 
She  stood  between  the  two  who  swayed  her  heart: 
Slowly  she  moved  to  choose  snblimer  pain; 
Yearning,  yet  shrinking;  wrought  upon  by  awe. 
Her  own  brief  life  seeming  a  little  isle 
Kemote  through  visions  of  a  wider  world 
With  fates  close-crowded;  firm  to  slay  her  joy 
That  cut  her  lieart  with  smiles  beneath  the  knife. 
Like  a  sweet  babe  foredoomed  by  prophecy. 
She  stood  apart,  yet  near  her  father:  stood 
Hand  clutching  hand,  her  limbs  all  tense  with  will 
That  strove  'gainst  anguish,  eyes  that  seemed  a  soul    ' 
Yearning  in  death  toward  him  she  loved  and  left. 
He  faced  her,  pale  with  passion  and  a  will 
Fierce  to  resist  Avhatever  might  seem  strong 
And  ask  him  to  submit:  he  saw  one  end — 
He  must  be  conqueror;  monarch  of  his  lot 
And  not  its  tributary.     But  she  spoke 
Tenderly,  pleadingly.] 

Fedalma. 

My  lord,  farewell! 
*Twas  well  we  met  once  more;  now  we  must  part. 
I  think  we  had  the  chief  of  all  love's  Joys 
Only  in  knowing  that  we  loved  each  other. 

Don  Silva. 

I  thought  we  loved  with  love  that  clings  till  death. 
Clings  as  brute  mothers  bleeding  to  their  young, 
Still  sheltering,  clutching  it,  though  it  were  dead; 
Taking  the  death-wound  sooner  than  divide. 
I  thought  we  loved  so. 

Fedalma. 

Silva,  it  is  fate. 
Great  Fate  has  made  me  heiress  of  this  woe. 
You  must  forgive  Fedalma  all  her  debt: 
She  is  quite  beggared:  if  she  gave  herself 
'Twould  be  a  self  corrupt  with  stifled  thoughts 


458  THE  SPANISH   GYPSY. 

Of  a  forsaken  better.     It  is  truth 

My  father  speaks:  the  Spanish  noble's  wife 

Were  a  false  Zincala.     No!  I  will  bear 

The  heavy  trust  of  my  inheritance. 

See,  ^twas  my  people's  life  that  throbbed  in  me: 

An  unknoAvn  need  stirred  darkly  in  my  soul. 

And  made  me  restless  even  in  my  bliss. 

Oh,  all  my  bliss  was  in  our  love;  but  now 

I  may  not  taste  it:  some  deej)  energy 

Compels  me  to  choose  hunger.     Dear,  farewell! 

I  must  go  with  my  people. 

[She  stretched  forth 
Her  tender  hands,  that  oft  had  lain  in  his, 
The  hands  he  knew  so  well,  that  sight  of  them 
Seemed  like  their  touch.     But  he  stood  still  as  death; 
Locked  motionless  by  forces  opposite: 
His  frustrate  hopes  still  battled  with  despair; 
His  will  was  prisoner  to  the  double  grasp 
Of  rage  and  hesitancy.     All  the  way 
Behind  him  he  had  trodden  confident, 
Kuling  munificently  in  his  thought 
This  Gypsy  father.     Now  the  father  stood 
Present  and  silent  and  unchangeable 
As  a  celestial  portent.     Backward  lay 
The  traversed  road,  the  town's  forsaken  wall 
The  risk,  the  daring;  all  around  him  now 
Was  obstacle,  save  where  the  rising  flood 
Of  love  close  pressed  by  anguish  of  denial 
Was  sweeping  him  resistless;  save  where  she 
Gazing  stretched  forth  her  tender  hands,  that  hurt 
Like  parting  kisses.     Then  at  last  he  spoke.] 

Don  Silva. 

No,  I  can  never  take  those  hands  in  mine. 
Then  let  them  go  forever! 

Fedalma. 

It  must  be. 
We  may  not  make  this  world  a  paradise 
By  walking  it  together  hand  in  hand, 
With  eyes  "that  meeting  feed  a  double  strength 
We  must  be  only  joined  by  pains  divine 


THE    SPAIflSH    GYPSY.  459 

Of  spirits  blent  in  mutual  memories. 
Silva,  our  joy  is  dead. 

Don  Silva. 

But  love  still  lives. 
And  has  a  safer  guard  in  wretchedness. 
Fedalma,  women  know  no  jDerfect  love: 
Loving  the  strong,  they  can  forsake  the  strong: 
Man  clings  because  the  being  whom  he  loves 
Is  weak  and  needs  him.     I  can  never  turn 
And  leave  you  to  your  difficult  wandering; 
Know  that  you  tread  the  desert,  bear  the  storm. 
Shed  tears,  see  terrors,  faint  with  Aveariness, 
Yet  live  away  from  you.     I  should  feel  naught 
But  your  imagined  pains:  in  my  own  steps 
See  your  feet  bleeding,  taste  your  silent  tears, 
And  feel  no  presence  but  your  loneliness. 
No,  I  will  never  leave  you! 

Zarca. 

My  lord  Duke, 
I  have  been  patient,  given  room  for  speech. 
Bent  not  to  move  my  daughter  by  command. 
Save  that  of  her  own  faithfulness.     But  now. 
All  further  words  are  idle  elegies 
Unfitting  times  of  action.     You  are  here 
With  the  safe-conduct  of  that  trust  you  showed 
Coming  unguarded  to  the  Gypsy's  camp. 
I  would  fain  meet  all  trust  with  courtesy 
As  well  as  honor;  but  my  utmost  power 
Is  to  afford  you  Gypsy  guard  to-night 
Within  the  tents  that  keep  the  northward  lines. 
And  for  the  morrow,  escort  on  your  way 
Back  to  the  Moorish  bounds. 

Don"  Silva. 

What  if  my  words 
Were  meant  for  deeds,  decisive  as  a  leap 
Into  the  current?     It  is  not  my  wont 
To  utter  hollow  Avords,  and  speak  resolves 
Like  verses  bandied  in  a  madrigal. 
I  spoke  in  action  first:  I  faced  all  risks 
To  find  Fedalma.     Action  speaks  again 


460  THE    SPANISH    GYPSY, 

When  I,  a  Spanish  noble,  here  declare 
That  I  abide  with  her,  adojDt  her  lot,  • 
Claiming  alone  fulfillment  of  her  vows 
As  my  betrothed  wife. 

Fedalma  {wresting  herself  from  him,  and  standing  opjio- 
site  vjith  a  looh  of  terror). 

Nay,  Silva,  nay! 
You  could  not  live  so — spring  from  your  high  place — 

Don  Silva. 

Yes,  I  have  said  it.     And  you,  chief,  are  bound 
By  her  strict  vows,  no  stronger  fealty 
Being  left  to  cancel  them. 

Zaeca, 

Strong  words,  my  lord! 
Sounds  fatal  as  the  hammer-strokes  that  shape  ■* 

The  glowing  metal:  they  must  shape  your  life. 
That  you  will  claim  my  daughter  is  to  say  ' 
That  you  will  leave  your  Spanish  dignities. 
Your  home,  your  wealth,  your  peojDle,  to  become 
Wholly  a  Zincala:  share  our  wanderings. 
And  be  a  match  meet  for  my  daughter's  dower 
By  living  for  her  tribe;  take  the  deep  oath 
That  binds  you  to  us;  rest  within  our  camp, 
Nevermore  hold  command  of  Spanish  men. 
And  keep  my  orders.     See,  my  lord,  you  lock 
A  many-winding  chain  —  a  heavy  chain. 

DoN"  Silva. 

I  have  but  one  resolve:  let  the  rest  follow. 

What  is  my  rank?     To-morrow  it  will  be  filled 

By  one  who  eyes  it  like  a  carrion  bird, 

Waiting  for  death,     I  shall  be  no  more  missed 

Than  waves  are  missed  that  leaping  on  the  rock 

Find  tliere  a  bed  and  rest.     Life's  a  vast  sea 

That  does  its  mighty  errand  without  fail. 

Panting   in   unclianged   strength   though   waves   are 

changing. 
And  I  have  said  it:  she  shall  be  my  people. 
And  where  she  gives  her  life  I  will  give  mine. 
She  shall  not  live  alone,  nor  die  alone. 


THE   SPANISH    GYPSY.  46] 

I  will  elect  my  deeds  I  and  be  the  liege 
Not  of  my  birth,  but  of  that  good  alone 
I  have  discerned  and  chosen. 

Zaeca. 

Our  poor  faith 
Allows  not  rightful  choice,  save  of  the  right 
Our  birth  has  made  for  us.     And  you,  my  lord. 
Can  still  defer  your  choice,  for  some  days'  space. 
I  march  perforce  to-night;  you,  if  you  will. 
Under  alGypsy  guard,  can  keep  the  heights 
"With  silent  Time  that  slowly  opes  the  scroll 
Of  change  inevitable — take  no  oath 
Till  my  accomplished  task  leave  me  at  large 
To  see  you  keep  your  purpose  or  renounce  it. 

Doisr  SiLVA. 

Chief,  do  I  hear  amiss,  or  does  your  speech 
Eing  with  a  doubleness  which  I  had  held 
Most  alien  to  you?     You  would  put  me  off. 
And  cloak  evasion  with  allowance?     No! 
"We  will  complete  our  pledges.     I  will  take 
That  oath  which  binds  not  me  alone,  but  you. 
To  join  my  life  forever  with  Fedalma's. 

Zaeca. 

I  wrangle  not — time  presses.     But  the  oath 
Will  leave  you  that  same  post  upon  the  heights; 
Pledged  to  remain  there  while  my  absence  lasts. 
You  are  agreed,  my  lord? 

Don  Silva. 

Agreed  to  all. 

Zarca. 

Then  I  will  give  the  summons  to  our  camp. 
"We  will  adopt  you  as  a  brother  now. 
After  our  wonted  fashion. 

[Exit  Zarca.] 

(Silva  takes  Fedalma's  hands.) 

Fedalma. 

0  my  lord! 


463  THE    SPANISH    GYPSY. 

I  think  the  earth  is  trembling:  naught  is  firm. 
Some  terror  chills  me  with  a  shadowy  grasp. 
Am  I  about  to  wake,  or  do  you  breathe 
Here  in  this  valley?     Did  the  outer  air 
Vibrate  to  fatal  words,  or  did  they  shake 
Only  my  dreaming  soul?    You — join — our  tribe? 

Don  Silva. 

Is  then  your  love  too  faint  to  raise  belief 
Up  to  that  height? 

Fedalma. 

Silva,  had  you  but  said 
That  you  would  die — that  were  an  easy  task 
For  you  who  oft  have  fronted  death  in  war. 
But  so  to  live  for  me — you,  used  to  rule — 
You  could  not  breathe  the  air  my  father  breathes: 
His  presence  is  subjection.     Go,  my  lord! 
Fly,  while  there  yet  is  time.     Wait  not  to  speak. 
I  will  declare  that  I  refused  your  love — 
Would  keep  no  vows  to  you 

Doisr  Silva. 

It  is  too  late. 
You  shall  not  thrust  me  back  to  seek  a  good 
Apart  from  you.     And  what  good?     Why,  to  face 
Your  absence — all  the  want  that  drove  me  forth — 
To  work  the  will  of  a  more  tyrannous  friend 
Than  any  uncowled  father.     Life  at  least 
Gives  choice  of  ills;  forces  me  to  defy, 
But  shall  not  force  me  to  a  weak  defiance. 
The  power  that  threatened  you,  to  master  me. 
That  scorches  like  a  cave-hid  dragon's  breath. 
Sure  of  its  victory  in  spite  of  hate, 
Is  what  I  last  will  bend  to — most  defy. 
Your  father  has  a  chieftain's  ends,  befitting 
A  soldier's  eye  and  arm:  were  he  as  strong 
As  the  Moor's  prophet,  yet  the  prophet  too 
Had  younger  captains  of  illustrious  fame 
Among  the  infidels.     Let  him  command. 
For  when  your  father  speaks,  I  shall  hear  you. 
Life  were  no  gain  if  you  were  lost  to  me: 
I  would  straight  go  and  seek  the  Moorish  walls. 
Challenge  their  bravest  and  embrace  swift  death. 


THE    SPANISH    GYPSY.  463 

The  Grlorious  Mother  and  her  pitying  Son 
Are  not  Inquisitors,  else  their  heaven  were  hell. 
Perhaps  they  hate  their  cruel  worshipers, 
And  let  them  feed  on  lies.     I'll  rather  trust 
They  love  you  and  have  sent  me  to  defend  you. 

Fedalma. 

I  made  my  creed  so,  just  to  suit  my  mood 
And  smooth  all  hardship,  till  my  father  came 
And  taught  my  soul  by  ruling  it.     Since  then 
I  cannot  weave  a  dreaming  happy  creed 
Where  our  love's  happiness  is  not  accursed. 
My  father  shook  my  soul  awake.     And  you — 
The  bonds  Fedalma  may  not  break  for  you, 
I  cannot  joy  that  you  should  break  for  her. 

Don  Silva. 

Oh,  Spanish  men  are  not  a  petty  band 
Where  one  deserter  makes  a  fatal  breach. 
Men,  even  nobles,  are  more  plenteous 
Than  steeds  and  armor;  and  my  weapons  left 
Will  find  new  hands  to  wield  them.     Arrogance 
Makes  itself  champion  of  mankind,  and  holds 
God's  purpose  maimed  for  one  hidalgo  lost. 

See  where  your  father  comes  and  brings  a  crowd 
Of  witnesses  to  hear  my  oath  of  love; 
The  low  red  sun  glows  on  them  like  a  fire. 
This  seems  a  valley  in  some  strange  new  world, 
Where  we  have  found  each  other,  my  Fedalma. 


BOOK  IV. 

Now  twice  the  day  had  sunk  from  off  the  hills 
While  Silva  kept  his  watch  there,  with  the  band 
Of  stalwart  Gypsies.     When  the  sun  was  high 
He  slept;  then,  waking,  strained  impatient  eyes 
To  catch  the  promise  of  some  moving  form 
That  might  be  Juan — Juan  who  went  and  came 
To  soothe  tAvo  hearts,  and  claimed  naught  for  his  own; 
Friend  more  divine  than  all  divinities, 


464  THE   SPANISH    GYPSY. 

Quenching  his  human  thirst  in  others'  joy. 

All  through  the  lingering  nights  and  pale  chill  dawns 

Juan  had  hovered  near;  with  delicate  sense, 

As  of  some  breath  from  every  changing  mood. 

Had  spoken  or  kept  silence;  touched  his  lute 

To  hint  of  melody,  or  poured  brief  strains 

That  seemed  to  make  all  sorrows  natural. 

Hardly  worth  weeping  for,  since  life  was  short. 

And  shared  by  loving  souls.     Such  pitv  welled 

AVithin  the  minstrers  heart  of  light-tongued  Juan 

For  this  doomed  man,  who  with  dream-shrouded  eyes 

Had  stepped  into  a  torrent  as  a  brook, 

Thinking  to  ford  it  and  return  at  will. 

And  now  waked  helpless  in  tlie  eddying  flood. 

Hemmed  by  its  raging  hurry.     Once  that  thought. 

How  easy  wandering  is,  how  hard  and  strict 

The  homeward  way,  had  slipped  from  reverie 

Into  low-murmured  song— (brief  Spanish  song 

'Scaped  him  as  sighs  escape  from  other  men): 

Push  off  the  boat, 
Quit,  quit  the  shore, 

The  stars  will  guide  us  lack: — 
0  gathering  cloud, 
0  luide,  wide  sea, 

0  loaves  that  keep  no  track! 

On  through  the  pines! 
The  pillared  woods, 

Where  silence  Ireatlies  sweet  breath: — 
0  labyrinth, 
0  sunless  gloom, 

Tlie  other  side  of  deatli  ! 

Such  plaintive  song  had  seemed  to  please  the  Duke- 
Had  seemed  to  melt  all  voices  of  reproach 
To  sympathetic  sadness  ;  but  his  moods 
Had  grown  more  fitful  with  the  growing  hours. 
And  this  soft  murmur  had  the  iterant  voice 
Of  heartless  Echo,  whom  no  pain  can  move 
To  say  aught  else  than  we  have  said  to  her. 
He  spoke,  impatient :  "  Juan,  cease  thy  song. 
Our  whimpering  poesy  and  small-paced  tunes 
Have  no  more  utterance  than  the  cricket's  chirp 
For  souls  that  carry  heaven  and  hell  within.'' 


THE   SPANISH   GYPSY.  405 

Then  Juan,  liglitly  :  ''  True,  my  lord,  I  chirp 
For  lack  of  soul ;  some  hvingry  poets  chirp 
For  lack  of  bread.     'Twere  wiser  to  sit  down 
Ard  count  the  star-seed,  till  I  fell  asleep 
With  the  cheap  wine  of  pure  stupidity." 
And  Silva  checked  by  courtesy:  '"'Nay,  Juan, 
Were  speech  once  good,  thy  song  were  best  of  speech. 
I  meant,  all  life  is  but  poor  mockery; 
Action,  place,  power,  the  visible,  wide  world 
Are  tattered  masquerading  of  this  self, 
This  pulse  of  conscious  mystery;  all  change. 
Whether  to  high  or  low,  is  change  of  rags. 
But  for  her  love,  I  would  not  take  a  good 
Save  to  burn  out  in  battle,  in  a  flame 
Of  madness  that  would  feel  no  mangled  limbs. 
And  die  not  knowing  death,  but  passing  straight 
— Well,  well,  to  other  flames — in  purgatory." 
Keen  Juan's  ear  caught  the  self-discontent 
That  vibrated  beneath  the  changing  tones 
Of  life-contemning  scorn.     Gently  he  said: 
**  But  with  her  love,  my  lord,  the  world  deserves 
A  higher  rate;  were  it  but  masquerade. 
The  rags  were  surely  worth  the  wearing?  "     "  Yes. 
No  misery  shall  force  me  to  repent 
That  I  have  loved  her." 

So  with  willful  talk. 
Fencing  the  wounded  soul  from  beating  winds 
Of  truth  that  came  unasked,  companionship 
Made  the  hours  lighter.     And  the  Gypsy  guard, 
Trusting  familiar  Juan,  were  content. 
At  friendly  hint  from  him,  to  still  their  songs 
And  biTsy  jargon  round  the  nightly  fires. 
Such  sounds,  the  quick-conceiving  poet  knew 
Would  strike  on  Silva's  agitated  soul 
Like  mocking  repetition  of  the  oath 
That  bound  him  in  strange  clanship  with  the  tribe 
Of  human  panthers,  flame-eyed,  lithe-limbed,  fierce. 
Uhrecking  of  time-woven  subtleties 
And*  high  tribunals  of  a  phantom-world. 

But  the  third  day,  though  Silva  southward  gazed 
Till  all  the  shadows  slanted  toward  him,  gazed 
Till  all  the  shadows  died,  no  Juan  came. 
Now  in  his  stead  came  loneliness,  and  Thought 
Inexorable,  fastening  with  firm  chain 
30 


4:66  THE   SPANISH    GYPSY. 

What  is  to  what  hath  been.     Now  awful  Night, 
The  prime  ancestral  mystery,  came  down 
Past  all  the  generations  of  the  stars, 
And  visited  his  soul  with  touch  more  tilose 
Than  when  he  kept  that  younger,  briefer  watch 
Under  the  church's  roof  beside  his  arms. 
And  won  his  knighthood. 

Well,  this  solitude 
This  company  with  the  enduring  universe, 
Whose  mighty  silence  carrying  all  the  past 
Absorbs  our  history  as  with  a  breath, 
Should  give  him  more  assurance,  make  him  strong 
In  all  contempt  of  that  poor  circumstance 
Called  human  life— customs  and  bonds  and  laws 
Wherewith  men  make  a  better  or  a  worse, 
Like  children  playing  on  a  barren  mound 
Feigning  a  thing  to  strive  for  or  avoid. 
Thus  Silva  argued  with  his  many-voiced  self. 
Whose  thwarted  needs,  like  angry  multitudes. 
Lured  from  the  home  that  nurtured  them  to  strength. 
Made  loud  insurgence.     Thus  he  called  on  Thought, 
On  dexterous  Thought,  with  its  swift  alchemy 
To  change  all  forms,  dissolve  all  prejudice 
Of  man's  long  heritage,  and  yield  him  up 
A  crude  fused  world  to  fashion  as  he  would. 
Thought  played  him  double;  seemed  to  wear  the  yoke 
Of  sovereign  passion  in  the  noon-day  height 
Of  passion's  prevalence;  but  served  anon 
As  tribune  to  the  larger  soul  which  brought 
Loud-mingled  cries  from  every  human  need 
That  ages  had  instructed  into  life. 
He  could  not  grasp  Night's  black  blank  mystery 
And  wear  it  for  a  spiritual  garb 
Creed-proof:  he  shuddered  at  its  passionless  touch. 
On  solitary  souls,  the  universe 
Looks  down  inhospitable;  the  human  heart 
Finds  nowhere  shelter  but  in  human  kind. 
He  yearned  toward  images  that  had  breath  in  fhem. 
That  sprang  warm  paipitant  with  memories  ' 
From  streets  and  altars,  from  ancestral  homes 
Banners  and  trophies  and  the  cherishing  rays 
Of  shame  and  honor  in  the  eyes  of  man. 
These  made  the  speech  articulate  of  his  soul. 
That  could  not  move  to  utterance  of  scorn 
Save  in  words  bred  by  fellowship:  could  not  feel 


THE   SPANISH   GYPSY.  4G7 

Eesolve  of  hardest  constancy  to  lova 

The  firmer  for  the  sorrows  of  the  loved, 

Save  by  concurrent  energies  high-wrought 

To  sensibilities  transcending  sense 

Through  close  community,  and  long-shared  pains 

Of  far-off  generations.     All  in  vain 

He  sought  the  outlaw's  strength,  and  made  a  right 

Contemning  that  hereditary  right 

Which  held  dim  habitations  in  his  fram(^ 

Mysterious  haunts  of  echoes  old  and  far, 

The  voice  divine  of  human  loyalty. 

At  home,  among  his  people,  he  had  played 

In  skeptic  ease  with  saints  and  litanies. 

And  thunders  of  the  church  that  deadened  fell 

Through  screens  of  priests  plethoric.    Awe,  unscathed 

By  deeper  trespass,  slept  without  a  dream. 

But  for  such  trespass  as  made  outcasts,  still 

The  ancient  furies  lived  with  faces  new 

And  lurked  with  lighter  slumber  than  of  old 

O'er  Catholic  Spain,  the  land  of  sacred  oaths 

That  might  be  broken. 

Now  the  former  life 
Of  close-linked  fellowshij),  the  life  that  made 
His  full-formed  self,  as  the  impregnate  saj) 
Of  years  successive  frames  the  full-branched  tree — 
Was  present  in  one  whole;  and  that  great  trust 
His  deed  had  broken  turned  reproach  on  him 
From  faces  of  all  witnesses  who  heard 
His  uttered  pledges;  saw  him  hold  high  place 
Centring  reliance;  use  rich  privilege 
That  bound  him  like  a  victim-nourished  god 
By  tacit  covenant  to  shield  and  bless; 
Assume  the  cross  and  take  his  knightly  oath 
Mature,  deliberate;  faces  human  all, 
And  some  divine  as  well  as  human;  His 
Who  hung  supreme,  the  suffering  Man  divine 
Above  the  altar;  Hers,  the  Mother  pure 
Whose  glance  informed  his  masculine  tenderness 
With  deepest  reverence;  the  archangel  armed. 
Trampling  man's  enemy;  all  heroic  forms 
That  till  the  world  of  faitli  with  voices,  liearts. 
And  high  companionship,  to  Silva  now 
Made  but  one  inward  ami  insistent  world 
With  faces  of  his  peers,  with  court  and  hall 
And  deference,  and  reverent  vafisalage^ 


468  THE    SPAK^ISH    GYPSY. 

And  filial  pieties — one  current  strong. 
The  warmly  mingled  life-blood  of  Lis  mind. 
Sustaining  him  even  when  he  idly  played 
With  rules,  beliefs,  charges,  and  ceremonies 
As  arbitrary  fooling.     Such  revenge 
Is  wrought  by  the  long  travail  of  mankind 
On  him  who  scorns  it,  and  would  shape  his  life 
Without  obedience. 

But  his  warrior's  pride 
Would  take  no  wounds  save  on  the  breast.     He  faced 
The  fatal  crowd:  "  I  never  shall  repent! 
If  I  have  sinned,  my  sin  was  made  for  me 
By  men's  perverseness.     There's  no  blameless  life 
Save  for  the  passionless,  no  sanctities 
But  have  the  self-same  roof  and  props  with  crime. 
Or  have  their  roots  close  interlaced  with  wrong. 
If  I  had  loved  her  less,  been  more  a  craven, 
I  had  kept  my  place  and  won  the  easy  praise 
Of  a  true  Spanish  noble.     But  I  loved. 
And,  loving,  dared — not  Death  the  warrior 
But  Infamy  that  binds  and  strips,  and  holds 
The  brand  and  lash.     I  have  dared  all  for  her. 
She  was  my  good — what  other  men  call  heaven. 
And  for  the  sake  of  it  bear  penances; 
Nay,  some  of  old  were  baited,  tortured,  flayed 
To  win  their  heaven.     Heaven  was  their  good. 
She,  mine.     And  I  have  braved  for  her  all  fires 
Certain  or  threatened;  for  I  go  away 
Beyond  the  reach  of  expiation — far  away 
From  sacramental  blessing.     Does  God  bless 
No  outlaw?     Shut  his  absolution  fast 
In  human  breath?     Is  there  no  God  for  me 
Save  him  whose  cross  I  have  forsaken? — Well, 
I  am  forever  exiled — but  with  her! 
She  is  dragged  out  into  the  wilderness; 
I,  with  my  love,  will  be  her  providence. 
I  have  a  right  to  choose  my  good  or  ill, 
A  right  to  damn  myself!    The  ill  is  mine. 
I  never  will  repent  I"     *     *     * 
Thus  Silva,  inwardly  debating,  all  his  ear 
Turned  into  audience  of  a  twofold  mind; 
For  even  in  tumult  full-fraught  consciousness 
Had  plenteous  being  for  a  self  aloof 
That  gazed  and  listened,  like  a  soul  in  dreams 
Weaving  the  wondrous  tale  it  marvels  at. 


THE   SPANISH    GYPSY.  409 

But  oft  the  conflict  slackened,  oft  strong  love 
With  tidal  energy  returning  laid 
All  other  restlessness;  Fedalma  came, 
And  with  her  visionary  presence  brought 
What  seemed  a  waking  in  the  warm  spring  morn. 
He  still  was  pacing  on  the  stony  earth 
Under  the  deepening  night;  the  fresh-lit  fires 
Were  flickering  on  dark  forms  and  eyes  that  met 
His  forward  and  his  backward  tread;  but  she. 
She  was  within  him,  making  his  whole  self 
Mere  correspondence  with  her  image;  sense. 
In  all  its  deep  recesses  Avhere  it  keeps 
The  mystic  stores  of  ecstasy,  was  turned 
To  memory  that  killed  the  hour,  like  wine. 
Then  Silva  said,  "She,  by  herself,  is  life. 
What  was  my  joy  before  I  loved  her — what 
Shall  heaven  lure  us  with,  love  being  lost?^^ — 
For  he  w^as  young. 

But  now  around  the  fires 
The  Grypsy  band  felt  freer;  Juan's  song- 
Was  no  more  there,  nor  Juan's  friendly  wnjs 
For  links  of  amity  'twixt  their  wild  mood 
And  this  strange  brother,  this  pale  Spanish  duke. 
Who  with  their  Gypsy  badge  upon  his  breast 
Took  readier  place  within  their  alien  hearts 
As  a  marked  captive,  who  would  fain  escape. 
And  Nadar,  who  commanded  them,  had  known 
The  prison  in  Bedmar.     So  now,  in  talk 
Foreign  to  Spanish  ears,  they  said  their  minds, 
Discussed  their  chief's  iutent,  the  lot  marked  out 
For  this  new  brother.     Would  he  wed  their  queen? 
And  some  denied,  saying  their  queen  would  wed 
Only  a  G-ypsy  duke — one  who  would  join 
Their  bands  in  Telemsan.     But  others  thought 
Young  Hassan  was  to  wed  her;  said  their  chief 
Would  never  trust  this  noble  of  Castile, 
Who  in  his  very  swearing  was  forsworn. 
And  then  one  fell  to  chanting,  in  wild  notes 
Recurrent  like  the  moan  of  outshut  winds. 
The  adjuration  they  were  wont  to  use 
To  any  Spaniard  who  would  join  their  tribe: 
Words  of  plain  Spanish,  lately  stirred  anew 
And  ready  at  new  impulse.     Soon  the  rest, 
Drawn  to  the  stream  of  sound,  made  unison 
Higher  and  lower,  till  the  tidal  sweep 


470  THE    SPANISH    GYPSY. 

Seemed  to  assail  the  Dnke  and  close  him  round 
With  force  dgemouic.     All  debate  till  now- 
Had  wrestled  with  the  urgence  of  that  oath 
Already  broken;  now  the  newer  oath 
Thrust  its  loud  presence  on  him.     He  stood  still, 
Close  bated  by  loud-barking  thoughts — fierce  hounds 
Of  that  Supreme,  the  irreversible  Past. 

The  ZiNCALi  sing. 

Brother,  hear  and  take  the  curse, 
Curse  of  soul's  and  body's  throes. 
If  you  hate  not  all  our  foes, 
Cling  not  fast  to  all  our  woes, 
Tur7i  false  Zincalo! 

May  you  be  accurst 
By  hunger  and  by  thirst 
By  spiked  pangs. 
Starvation's  fangs 
Chitching  you  alone 
When  none  but  peering  vultures  hear  your  moan. 
Curst  by  burning  hayids, 
Curst  by  aching  brow, 
When  on  sea-ivide  sands 

Fever  lays  you  loiu; 
By  the  maddening  brain 
When  the  running  tuater  glistens. 
And  the  deaf  ear  listens,  listens. 
Prisoned  fire  unthin  the  vein. 
On  the  tongue  and  on  the  lip 

Not  a  sip 
From  the  earth  or  shies; 
Hot  the  desert  lies 
Pressed  into  your  anguish. 

Narrowing  earth  and  narrowing  shy 
Into  lonely  misery. 
Lonely  may  you  languish 
Through  the  day  and  through  the  night. 
Hate  the  darkness,  hate  the  light. 
Pray  and  find  no  ear. 
Feel  no  brother  near 
Till  on  death  you  cry. 
Death  tvho  passes  by. 


THE    SPANISH    GYPSY.  471 

And  aneio  you  groan, 
Scaring  the  vidtures  all  to  leave  you  living  lone: 
Curst  by  soul's  and  body's  throes 
If  you  love  the  darh  men's  foes, 
Gli7ig  not  fast  to  all  the  dark  men's  tvoes. 
Turn  false  Zincalo! 
Sioear  to  hate  the  ci'uel  cross, 

,      The  silver  cross! 
Glittering,  laughing  at  the  blood 
Shed  below  it  in  a  flood 
Wlien  it  glitters  over  Moorish  porches; 

Laughing  at  the  scent  of  flesh 
When  it  glitters  lohere  the  faggot  scorches. 
Burning  life's  mysterious  mesh: 
Blood  of  wandering  Israel 
Blood  of  wandering  Ismael; 
Blood,  the  drink  of  Christian  scorn, 
Blood  of  wanderers,  sons  of  morn 
Where  the  life  of  men  began: 
Svjear  to  hate  the  cross! — 
Sign  of  all  the  wanderers'  foes, 
Sign  of  all  the  wanderers'  ivoes — 

"Else  its  curse  light  on  you! 
Else  the  curse  upon  you,  light 
Of  its  sharp  red-stvorded  might. 
May  it  lie  a  blood-red  blight 
On  all  things  toithin  your  sight: 
On  the  lohite  haze  of  the  morn, 
On  the  meadows  and  the  corn, 
On  the  sun  and  on  the  moon, 
On  the  clearness  of  the  noon. 
On  the  darkness  of  the  night. 
May  it  fill  your  aching  sight — 
Red-cross  sword  and  sword  blood-red— =^ 
Till  it  press  upon  your  head. 
Till  it  lie  loithin  ijour  brain. 
Piercing  sharp,  a  cross  of  puvuf 
Till  it  lie  ujmn  your  heart, 

Burning  hot,  a  cross  of  fire, 
Till  from  sense  in  every  part 
Pains  have  clustered  like  a  stinging  swarm 

In  the  cross's  form, 
And  you  see  naught  but  the  cross  of  blood, 
And  you  feel  naught  but  the  cross  of  fire; 
Curst  by  all  the  cro^'^  throes 


473  THE    SPANISH    GYPSY. 

If  you  hate  not  all  our  foes, 
Cling  not  fast  to  all  our  woes. 
Turn  false  Zincalo  ! 

A  fierce  delight  was  in  the  Gypsies'  chant; 
•     They  thought  no  more  of  Silva,  only  felt 
Like  those  broad-chested  rovers  of  the  night 
Who  pour  exuberant  strength  upon  the  a^r. 
To  him  it  seemed  as  if  the'hellish  rhythm, 
Eevolviug  in  long  curves  that  slackened  now, 
Now  hurried,  sweeping  round  again  to  slackness. 
Would  cease  no  more.     What  use  to  raise  his  voice. 
Or  grasp  his  weapon?    He  was  powerless  now. 
With  these  new  comrades  of  his  future — he 
Who  had  been  wont  to  have  his  wishes  feared 
And  guessed  at  as  a  hidden  law  for  men. 
Even  the  passive  silence  of  the  night 
That  left  these  howlers  mastery,  even  the  moon, 
Eising  and  staring  with  a  helpless  face, 
Angered  him.     He  was  ready  now  to  fly 
At  some  loud  throat,  and  give  the  signal  so 
For  butchery  of  himself. 

But  suddenly 
The  sounds  that  traveled  toward  no  foreseen  close 
Were  torn  right  off  and  fringed  into  the  night; 
Sharp  Gypsy  ears  had  caught  the  onward  strain 
Of  kindred  voices  joining  in  the  chant. 
All  started  to  their  feet  and  mustered  close. 
Auguring  long-waited  summons.     It  was  come; 
The  summons  to  set  forth  and  join  their  chief. 
Fedalraa  had  been  called  and  she  was  gone 
Under  safe  escort,  Juan  following  her; 
The  camp— the  women,  children,  and  old  men — 
Were  moving  slowly  southward  on  the  way 
To  Almeria,     Silva  learned  no  more. 
He  marched  perforce;  what  other  goal  was  his 
Than  where  Fedalma  was?    And  so  he  marched 
Through  the  dim  passes  and  o'er  rising  hills, 
Not  knowing  whither,  till  the  morning  came. 


THE   SPASTISH   GYPSY.  473 

The  Moorisli  liall  in  the  castle  at  BeJ/ndr.  The  morning 
tivilight  dimly  shoivs  stains  of  Mood  on  the  luhite  marble 
floor;  yet  there  has  been  a  careful  restoration  of  order 
among  the  sparse  objects  of  furniture.  Stretched  on  mats 
lie  tltree  corpses,  the  faces  bare,  the  bodies  covered  with 
mantles.  A  little  loay  off,  with  rolled  matting  for  a 
2Jilloiu,  lies  Zaeca,  sleefing.  His  chest  and  arms  are 
bare;  his  weapons,  turban,  mnil-shirt  and  other  dipper 
garments  lie  on  the  floor  beside  him.  In  the  outer  gallery 
Zincali  are  pacing,  at  intervals,  past  the  arched  openings. 

Zarca  {half  rising  and  resting  his  eXbow  on  the  pillow 
while  he  looks  round). 

The  moruing!  I  have  slept  for  full  three  hours; 

Slept  without  dreams,  save  of  my  daughter's  face. 

Its  sadness  waked  me.     Soon  she  will  be  here. 

Soon  must  outlive  the  worst  of  all  the  pains 

Bred  hy  false  nurture  in  an  alien  home — 

As  if  a  lion  in  fangiess  infancy 

Learned  love  of  creatures  that  with  fatal  growth 

It  scents  as  natural  prey,  and  grasps  and  tears. 

Yet  with  heart-hunger  yearns  for,  missing  them. 

She  is  a  lioness.     And  they — the  race 

That  robbed  me  of  her — reared  her  to  this  pain. 

He  will  be  crushed  and  torn.     There  was  no  help. 

But  she,  my  child,  will  bear  it.     For  strong  souls 

Live  like  fire-hearted  suns  to  spend  their  strength 

In  farthest  striving  action;  breathe  more  free 

In  mighty  anguish  than  in  trivial  ease. 

Her  sad  face  waked  me.     I  shall  meet  it  soon 

Waking 

{He  rises  and  stands  looking  at  the  corpses. ) 

As  now  I  look  on  these  pale  dead, 
These  blossoming  branches  crushed  beneath  the  fall 
Of  that  broad  trunk  to  which  I  laid  my  axe 
With  fullest  foresight.     So  will  I  ever  face 
In  thought  beforehand  to  its  utmost  reach 
The  consequences  of  my  conscious  deeds; 
So  face  them  after,  bring  them  to  my  bed. 
And  never  drug  my  soul  to  sleep  with  lies. 
If  thov  are  cruel,  they  shall  be  arraigned 
By  that  true  name;  they  shall  be  justified 
By  my  high  purpose,  by  the  clear-seen  good 


474  THE   SPANISH   GYPSY. 

That  grew  into  my  vision  as  I  grew. 
And  makes  my  nature's  function,  the  fall  pulse 
Of  inbred  kingship.     Catholics, 
Arabs  and  Hebrews,  have  their  god  apiece 
To  fight  and  conquer  for  them,  or  be  bruised. 
Like  Allah  now,  yet  keep  avenging  stores 
Of  patient  wrath.     The  Zincali  have  no  god 
Who  speaks  to  them  and  calls  them  his,  unless 
I,  Zarca,  carry  living  in  my  frame 
The  power  divine  that  chooses  them  and  saves. 
"Life  and  more  life  unto  the  chosen,  death 
To  all  things  living  that  Avould  stifle  them!" 
So  speaks  each  god  that  makes  a  nation  strong; 
Burns  trees  and  brutes  and  slays  all  hindering  men. 
The  Spaniards  boast  their  god  the  strongest  now; 
They  win  most  towns  by  treachery,  make  most  slaves. 
Burn  the  most  vines  and  men,  and  rob  the  most. 
I  fight  against  that  strength,  and  in  my  turn 
Slay  these  brave  young  who  duteously  strove. 
Cruel?  aye,  it  is  cruel.     But,  how  else? 
To  save,  we  kill;  each  blow  we  strike  at  guilt 
Hurts  innocence  with  its  shock.  Men  might  well  seek. 
For  purifying  rites;  even  pious  deeds 
JsTeed  washing.     But  my  cleansing  waters  flow 
Solely  from  my  intent. 

{He  turns  aivay  from  the  bodies  to  where  his  garments  lie, 
but  does  not  lift  them.) 

And  she  must  suffer! 
But  she  has  seen  the  unchangeable  and  bowed 
Her  head  beneath  the  yoke.     And  she  will  walk    • 
No  more  in  chilling  twilight,  for  to-day 
Eises  our  sun.     The  difiicult  night  is  past; 
We  keep  the  bridge  no  more,  but  cross  it;  march 
Forth  to  a  land  where  all  our  wars  shall  be 
With  greedy  obstinate  plants  that  will  not  yield 
Fruit  for  their  nurture.     All  our  race  shall  come 
From  north,  west,  east,  a  kindred  multitude. 
And  make  large  fellowship,  and  raise  inspired 
The  shout  divine,  the  unison  of  resolve. 
So  I,  so  she,  will  see  our  race  redeemed. 
And  their  keen  love  of  family  and  tribe 
Shall  no  more  thrive  on  cunning,  hide  and  lurk 
In  petty  arts  of  abject  hunted  life. 


THE    SPANISH    GYPSy.  475 

But  grow  heroic  in  the  sanctioning  light. 
And  feed  with  ardent  blood  a  nation's  heart. 
That  is  my  work;  and  it  is  well  begun. 
On  to  achievement! 

{He  takes  up  the  mail-sliirt,  and  looks  at  it,  then  throws  it 

doivn  again.) 

No,  I'll  none  of  you ! 
To-day  there'll  be  no  fighting.     A  few  hours. 
And  I  shall  doif  these  garments  of  the  Moor; 
Till  then  I  will  walk  lightly  and  breathe  high. 

Sephardo  {appearing  at   the  archioay   leading  into   the 

outer  gallery). 

You  bade  me  wake  vou 

Zarca. 

Welcome,  Doctor;  see, 
"With  that  small  task  I  did  but  beckon  you 
To  graver  work.     You  know  these  corpses? 

Sephardo. 

Yes. 
I  would  they  were  not  corpses.     Storms  will  lay 
The  fairest  trees  and  leave  the  withered  stumps. 
This  Alvar  and  the  Duke  were  of  one  age. 
And  very  loving  friends.     I  minded  not 
The  sight  of  Don  Diego's  corpse,  for  death 
Gave  him  some  gentleness,  and  had  he  lived 
I  had  still  hated  him.     But  this  young  Alvar 
Was  doubly  noble,  as  a  gem  that  holds 
Eare  virtues  in  its  lustre;  and  his  death 
Will  pierce  Don  Silva  with  a  poisoned  dart. 
This  fair  and  curly  youth  was  Arias, 
A  son  of  the  Pachecos:  this  dark  face 

Zarca. 

Enough!  you  know  their  names.     I  had  divined 
That  they  were  near  the  Duke,  most  like  had  served 
My  daughter,  were  lier  friends;  so  rescued  them 
From  being  flung  upon  the  heap  of  slain. 
Beseech  you.  Doctor,  if  you  owe  me  aught 


476  THE    SPANISH    GYPSY. 

As  having  served  your  people,  take  the  pains 

To  see  these  bodies  buried  decently. 

And  let  their  names  be  writ  above  their  graves, 

As  those  of  brave  young  Spaniards  who  died  well. 

I  needs  must  bear  this  womanhood  in  my  heart — 

Bearing  my  daughter  there.     For  once  she  prayed — 

'Twas  at  our  parting — "  When  you  see  fair  hair 

Be  pitiful."     And  I  am  forced  to  look 

On  fair  heads  living  and  be  pitiless. 

Your  service.  Doctor,  will  be  done  to  her. 

Sephardo. 

A  service  doubly  dear.     For  these  young  dead. 
And  one  less  happy  Spaniard  who  still  lives. 
Are  offerings  which  I  wrenched  from  out  my  heart. 
Constrained  by  cries  of  Israel:  while  my  hands 
Rendered  the  victims  at  command,  my  eyes 
Closed  themselves  vainly,  as  if  vision  lay 
Through  those  poor  loopholes  only.     I  will  go 
And  see  the  graves  dug  by  some  cypresses. 

Zaeca. 

Meanwhile  the  bodies  shall  rest  here.     Farewell. 

{Exit  Sephardo.) 

Nay,  'tis  no  mockery.     She  keeps  me  so 
From  hardening  with  the  hardness  of  my  acts. 
This  Spaniard  shrouded  in  lier  love — I  would 
He  lay  here  too  that  I  might  pity  him. 

Morning. — The  Pla^a  Santiago  in  Bedmdr.  A  crowd  of 
townsmen  forming  an  outer  circle:  within,  Zincali  and 
Moorish  soldiers  draivn  'iq^  round  the  central  space.  On 
the  higher  ground  in  front  of  the  church  a  staJce  ivith 
faggots  heaped,  and  at  a  little  distance  a  gibbet.  Moorish 
'music.  Zarca  enters,  wearing  his  gold  necklace  with 
the  Gypsg  badge  of  the  flaming  torch  over  the  dress  of  a 
Moorish  captain,  'accompanied  by  a  small  band  of  armed 
Zincali,  who  fall  aside  and  range  themselves  with  the 
other  soldiers  ivhile  he  takes  his  stand  in  front  of  the 
stake  and  gibbet.  The  music  ceases,  and  there  is  expect- 
ant  silence. 


THE   SPANISH   GYPSY.  47 


Zarca. 


I^IV 


Men  of  Bedmdr,  well-wishers,  and  allies, 

Whether  of  Moorish  or  of  Hebrew  blood, 

Who,  being  galled  by  the  hard  Spaniard's  yoke. 

Have  welcomed  our  quick  conquest  as  release, 

I,  Zarca,  chief  of  Sjjanish  gypsies,  hold 

By  delegation  of  the  Moorish  king 

Supreme  command  within  this  town  and  fort. 

Nor  will  I,  with  false  show  of  modesty. 

Profess  myself  unworthy  of  this  post. 

For  so  I  should  but  tax  the  giver's  choice. 

And,  as  ye  know,  while  I  was  prisoner  here. 

Forging  the  bullets  meant  for  Moorish  hearts. 

But  likely  now  to  reach  another  mark, 

I  learned  the  secrets  of  the  town's  defense, 

Caught  the  loud  whispers  of  your  discontent. 

And  so  could  serve  the  purpose  of  the  ^\[oor 

As  the  edge's  keenness  serves  the  weapon's  weight. 

My  Zincali,  lynx-eyed  and  lithe  of  limb, 

Tracked  out  the  high  Sierra's  hidden  path. 

Guided  the  hard  ascent,  and  were  the  first 

To  scale  the  walls  and  brave  the  showering  stones. 

In  brief,  I  reached  this  rank  through  service  done 

By  thought  of  mine  and  valor  of  my  tribe, 

Yet  hold  it  but  in  trust,  with  readiness 

To  lay  it  down;  for  we — the  Zincali — 

Will  never  pitch  our  tents  again  on  land 

The  Spaniard  grudges  us;  we  seek  a  home 

Where  we  may  spread  and  ripen  like  the  corn 

By  blessing  of  the  sun  and  spacious  earth. 

Ye  wish  us  well,  I  think,  and  are  our  friends? 

Crowd. 
Long  life  to  Zarca  and  his  Zincali! 

Zarca. 

Now,  for  the  cause  of  our  assembling  here. 

'Twas  my  command  that  rescued  from  your  hands 

That  Spanish  prior  and  inquisitor 

Whom  in  fierce  retribution  you  had  bound 

And  meant  to  burn,  tied  to  a  planted  cross. 

I  rescued  him  with  promise  that  his  death 

Should  be  more  signal  in  its  justice — made 


478  THE    SPANISH   GYPSY. 

Public  in  fullest  sense,  and  orderly. 

Here,  then,  you  see  the  stake — slow  death  by  fire; 

And  there  a  gibbet — swift  death  by  the  cord\ 

Now  hear  me.  Moors  and  Hebrews  of  Bedmar, 

Our  kindred  Isy  the  warmth  of  eastern  blood! 

Punishing  cruel  wrong  by  cruelty 

We  copy  'Christian  crime.     Vengeance  is  just; 

Justly  we  rid  the  earth  of  human  fiends 

Who  carry  hell  for  pattern  in  their  souls. 

But  in  high  vengeance  there  is  noble  scorn; 

It  tortures  not  the  torturer,  nor  gives 

Iniquitous  payment  for  iniquity. 

The  great  avenging  angel  does  not  crawl 

To  kill  the  serpent  with  a  mimic  fang; 

He  stands  erect  with  sword  of  keenest  edge 

That  slays  like  liglitning.     So,  too,  we  will  slay 

The  cruel  man;  slay  him  because  he  works 

Woe  to  mankind.     And  I  have  given  command 

To  pile  these  faggots,  not  to  burn  quick  flesh. 

But  for  a  sign  of  that  dire  wrong  to  men 

Which  arms  our  wrath  with  justice.     While,  to  show 

This  Christian  Avorshiper  that  we  obey 

A  better  law  than  his,  he  shall  be  led 

Straight  to  the  gibbet  and  to  swiftest  death. 

For  I,  the  chieftain  of  the  Gypsies,  will. 

My  people  shed  no  blood  but  what  is  shed 

In  heat  of  battle  or  in  judgment  strict 

With  calm  deliberation  on  the  right. 

Such  is  my  will,  and  if  it  please  you — well. 

Ceowd. 
It  pleases  us.     Long  life  to  Zarca! 

Zarca. 

Hark! 
The  bell  is  striking,  and  they  bring  even  now 
The  prisoner  from  the  fort.     What,  Nadar? 

Nadar  {has  appeared,  cutting  the  croiud,  and  advancing 
toward  Zarca  till  he  is  near  enough  to  speak  in  an 
undertone). 

Chief, 
I  have  obeyed  your  word,  have  followed  it 
As  water  does  the  furrow  in  the  rock. 


the  spanish  gypsy.  479 

Zaeca. 
Your  band  is  here? 

Nadar. 
Yes,  and  tlie  Spaniard  too. 

Zarca. 
'Twas  so  I  ordered. 

Nadar, 

Aj,  but  this  sleek  hound. 
Who  slipped  his  collar  off  to  join  the  wolves. 
Has  still  a  heart  for  none  but  kenneled  brutes. 
He  rages  at  the  taking  of  tlie  town, 
Says  all  his  friends  are  butchered;  and  one  corpse 
He  stumbled  on — well,  I  would  sooner  be 
A  murdered  Gypsy's  dog,  and  howl  for  him, 
Than  be  this  Spaniard.     Eage  has  made  him  whiter. 
One  townsman  taunted  him  with  his  escape, 
And  thanked  him  for  so  favoring  us 

Zarca. 

Enough. 
You  gave  him  my  command  that  he  should  wait 
Within  the  castle,  till  I  saw  him? 

Nadar. 

Yes. 

But  he  defied  me,  broke  away,  ran  loose 
I  know  not  whither;  he  may  soon  be  here. 
I  came  to  warn  you,  lest  he  work  us  harm. 

Zarca. 

Fear  not,  I  know  the  road  I  travel  by: 

Its  turns  are  no  surprises.     He  who  rules 

Must  humor  full  as  much  as  lie  commands; 

Must  let  men  vow  impossibilities; 

Grant  folly's  prayers  that  hinder  folly's  wish 

And  serve  the  ends  of  wisdom.     Ah,  he  comes! 

[Sweeping  like  some  pale  herald  from  the  dead. 
Whose  shadow-nurtured  eyes,  dazed  by  full  light. 
See  naught  without,  but  give  reverted' sense 


480  THE    SPANISH    GYPSY. 

To  the  soul's  imagery,  Silva,  came, 
The  wondering  people  parting  wide  to  get 
Continuous  sight  of  him  as  he  passed  on — 
This  high  hidalgo,  who  through  blooming  years 
Had  shone  on  men  with  planetary  calm, 
Believed-m  with  all  sacred  images 
And  saints  that  must  be  taken  as  they  were. 
Though  rendering  meagre  service  for  men's  praise: 
Bareheaded  now,  carrying  an  unsheathed  sword. 
And  on  his  breast,  where  late  he  bore  the  cross. 
Wearing  the  Gypsy  badge;  his  form  aslant. 
Driven,  it  seemed,  by  some  invisible  chase, 
Eight  to  the  front  of  Zarca.     There  he  paused.] 

Do^  Silva. 

Chief,  you  are  treacherous,  cruel,  devilish! — 

Eelentless  as  a  curse  that  once  let  loose 

From  lips  of  wrath,  lives  bodiless  to  destroy. 

And  darkly  traps  a  man  in  nets  of  guilt 

Which  could  not  weave  themselves  in  open  day 

Before  his  eyes.     Oh,  it  was  bitter  wrong 

To  hold  this  knowledge  locked  within  your  mind. 

To  stand  with  waking  eyes  in  broadest  light. 

And  see  me,  dreaming,  shed  my  kindred's  blood. 

'Tis  horrible  that  men  with  hearts  and  hands 

Should  smile  in  silence  like  the  firmament 

And  see  a  fellow-mortal  draw  a  lot 

On  which  themselves  have  written  agony! 

Such  injury  has  no  redress,  no  healing 

Save  what  may  He  in  stemming  further  ill. 

Poor  balm  for  maiming !     Yet  I  come  to  claim  it. 

Zaeca. 

First  prove  your  wrongs,  and  I  will  hear  your  claim. 

Mind,  you  are  not  commander  of  Bedmar, 

Nor  duke,  nor  knight,  nor  anything  for  me. 

Save  a  sworn  Grypsy,  subject  with  my  tribe. 

Over  whose  deeds  my  will  is  absolute. 

You  chose  that  lot,  and  would  have  railed  at  me 

Had  I  refused  it  you:  I  warned  you  first 

What  oaths  you  had  to  take 

Do2sr  Silva. 

You  never  warned  me 


THE    SPANISH    GYPSY.  48] 

That  you  had  linked  yourself  with  Moorish  men 
To  take  this  town  and  fortress  of  Bedmar — 
Slay  my  near  kinsman,  him  who  held  my  place. 
Our  house's  heir  and  guardian — slay  my  friend, 
My  chosen  brother — desecrate  the  church 
Where  once  my  mother  held  me  in  her  arms. 
Making  the  holy  chrism  holier 
With  tears  of  joy  that  fell  ujDon  my  brow! 
You  never  warned 

Zarca. 

I  warned  you  of  your  oath. 
Tou  shrank  not,  were  resolved,  were  sure  your  place 
Would  never  miss  you,  and  you  had  your  will. 
I  am  no  priest,  and  keep  no  consciences: 
I  keep  my  own  place  and  my  own  command. 

Don  Silva. 

I  said  my  place  would  never  miss  me — yes! 

A  thousand  Spaniards  died  on  that  same  day 

And  were  not  missed;  their  garments  clothed  the  backs 

That  else  were  bare 

Zarca. 

But  you  were  just  the  one 
Above  the  thousand,  had  you  known  the  die 
That  fate  was  throAving  then. 

Don  Silva. 

You  knew  it — you! 
With  fiendish  knowledge,  smiling  at  the  end. 
You  knew  what  snares  had  made  my  flying  steps 
Murderous;  you  let  me  lock  my  soul  with  oaths 
Which  your  acts  made  a  hellish  sacrament. 
I  say,  you  knew  this  as  a  fiend  would  know  it. 
And  let  me  damn  myself. 

Zarca. 

The  deed  was  done 
Before  you  took  your  oath,  or  reached  our  camp, — 
Done  when  you  slipped  in  secret  from  the  i)Ost 
'Twas  yours'to  keep,  and  not  to  meditate 
If  others  might  not  fill  it.     For  your  oath, 
31 


482  THE   SPANISH    GYPSY. 

What  man  is  he  who  brandishes  a  sword 
In  darkness,  kills  his  friends,  and  rages  then 
Against  the  night  that  kept  him  ignorant? 
Should  1,  for  one  unstable  Spaniard,  quit 
My  steadfast  ends  as  father  and  as  chief; 
Renounce  my  daughter  and  my  people's  hope. 
Lest  a  deserter  should  be  made  ashamed? 

Don  Silva. 

Your  daughter — 0  great  God !  I  vent  but  madness. 
The  past  will  never  change.     I  come  to  stem 
Harm  that  may  yet  be  hindered.     Chief — this  stake — 
Tell  me  who  is  to  die!     Are  you  not  bound 
Yourself  to  him  you  took  in  fellowship? 
The  town  is  yours;  let  me  but  save  the  blood 
That  still  is  Avarm  in  men  who  were  my 

Zakca. 

Peace! 
They  bring  the  prisoner. 

[Zarca  waved  his  arm 
With  head  averse,  in  peremptory  sign 
That  'twixt  them  now  there  should  be  space  and  silence. 
Most  eyes  had  turned  to  where  the  prisoner 
Advanced  among  his  guards;  and  Silva  too 
Turned  eagerly,  all  other  striving  quelled 
By  striving  with  the  dread  lest  he  should  see 
His  thought  outside  him.     And  he  saw  it  there. 
The  prisoner  was  Father  Isidor: 
The  man  whom  once  he  fiercely  had  accused 
As  author  of  his  misdeeds — whose  designs 
Had  forced  him  into  fatal  secrecy. 
The  imperious  and  inexorable  Will 
Was  yoked,  and  he  who  had  been  pitiless 
To  Silva's  love,  was  led  to  pitiless  death. 
0  hateful  victory  of  blind  wishes— prayers 
Which  hell  had  overheard  and  swift  fulfilled! 
The  triumph  was  a  torture,  turning  all 
The  strength  of  passion  into  strength  of  pain. 
Remorse  was  born  within  him,  that  dire  birth 
Which  robs  all  else  of  nurture — cancerous, 
Forcing  each  pulse  to  feed  its  anguish,  turning 
All  sweetest  residues  of  healthy  life 


THE   oPAXrSH    GYPSY.  483 

To  fibrous  clutches  of  slow  misery. 

Silva  had  but  rebelled — he  was  not  free  ; 

And  all  the  subtle  cords  that  bound  his  soul 

Were  tightened  by  the  strain  of  one  rash  leap 

Made  in  defiance.     He  accused  no  more, 

But  dumbly  shrank  before  accusing  throngs 

Of  thoughts,  the  impetuous  recurrent  rush 

Of  all  his  past-created,  unchanged  self. 

The  Father  came  bareheaded,  frocked,  a  rope 

Around  his  neck, — but  clad  with  majesty, 

The  strength  of  resolute  undivided  souls 

Who,  owning  law,  obey  it.     In  his  hand 

He  bore  a  ci'ucifix,  and  praying,  gazed 

Solely  on  that  white  image.     But  his  guards 

Parted  in  front,  and  paused  as  they  approached 

The  center  where  the  stake  was.     Isidor 

Lifted  his  eyes  to  look  around  him — calm. 

Prepared  to  speak  last  words  of  willingness 

To  meet  his  death — last  words  of  faith  unchanged, 

That,  working  for  Christ's  kingdom,  he  had  wrought 

Eiglitcously.     But  his  glance  met  Silva's  eyes 

And  drew  him.     Even  images  of  stone 

Look  living  with  reproacli  (;n  him  who  maims. 

Profanes,  defiles  them.     Silva  penitent 

Moved  forward,  would  luive  knelt  before  the  man 

Who  still  was  one  with  all  the  sacred  tilings 

That  came  back  on  him  iu  their  sacredness. 

Kindred,  and  oaths,  and  awe,  and  mystery. 

But  at  the  sight,  the  Father  thrust  the  cross 

With  deprecating  act  before  him,  and  his  face 

Pale-quivering,  flashed  out  horror  like  white  light 

Flashed  from  the  angel's  sword  that  dooming  drave 

The  sinner  to  the  wilderness.     He  spoke.] 

Father  Isidor. 
Back  from  me,  traitorous  ami  accursed  man! 
Defile  not  me,  who  grasp  the  holiest. 
With  touch  or  breath!     Thou  foulest  murderer! 
Fouler  than  Cain  who  strnck  his  brothur  down 
In  jealous  rage,  thou  for  thy  base  delight 
Hast  oped  tlie  gate  for  wolves  to  come  and  tear 
Uncounted  brethren,  weak  and  strong  alike. 
The  helpless  priest,  the  warrior  all  unarmed 
Against\i  faithless  leader:  on  thy  head 
Will  rest  the  sacrilege,  on  thy  soul  the  blood. 


484  THE   SPAKIStt   GYPSY. 

These  blind  barbarians,  misbelievers,  Moors, 

Are  but  as  Pilate  and  his  soldiery; 

Thou,  Judas,  weighted  with  that  heaviest  crime 

Which  deepens  liell!     I  warned  you  of  this  end. 

A  traitorous  leader,  false  to  God  and  man, 

A  knight  apostate,  you  shall  soon  behold 

Above  your  people's  blood  the  light  of  flames 

Kindled  by  you  to  burn  me — burn  the  flesh 

Twin  with  your  father's.     Oh,  most  wretched  man! 

Whose  memory  sliall  be  of  broken  oaths — 

Broken  for  lust — I  turn  away  mine  eyes 

Forever  from  you.     See,  the  stake  is  ready 

And  I  am  ready  too. 

Don  Silva. 

It  shall  not  be! 

{Raising  his  sword,  lie  rushes  in  front  of  the  guards  who 

are  advancing,  and  iwpedes  tlieni.) 

If  you  are  human,  chief,  hear  my  demand! 
Stretch  not  my  soul  upon  the  endless  rack 
Of  this  man's  torture! 

Zarca. 

Stand  aside,  my  lord! 
Put  up  your  sword.     You  vowed  obedience 
To  me,  your  chief.     It  was  your  latest  vow. 

Don  Silva. 

No!  hew  me  from  the  spot,  or  fasten  me 
Amid  the  faggots,  too,  if  he  must  burn. 

Zaeca. 

What  should  befall  that  persecuting  monk 

Was  fixed  before  you  came;  no  cruelty, 

No  nicely  measured  torture,  weiglit  for  weight 

Of  injury,  no  luscious-tootlied  revenge 

That  justifies  the  injurer  by  its  joy; 

I  seek  but  rescue  and  security 

For  harmless  men,  and  such  security 

Means  death  to  vipers  and  inquisitors. 

These  faggots  shall  but  innocently  blaze 

In  sign  of  gladness,  when  this  man  is  dead, 


THE   SPANISH    GYPSY.  485 

That  one  more  torturer  has  left  the  earth. 

^Tis  not  for  infidels  to  burn  live  men 

And  ape  the  rules  of  Christian  piety. 

This  hard  oppressor  shall  not  die  by  fire; 

He  mounts  the  gibbet,  dies  a  speedy  death. 

That,  like  a  transfixed  dragon,  he  may  cease 

To  vex  mankind.     Quick,  guards,  and  clear  the  path  I 

[As  well-trained  hounds  that  hold  their  fleetness  tense 

In  watchful,  loving  fixity  of  dark  eyes, 

And  move  with  movement  of  their  master's  will. 

The  Gypsies  with  a  wavelike  swiftness  met 

Around  the  Father,  and  in  wheeling  course 

Passed  beyond  Silva  to  the  gibbet's  foot, 

Behind  their  chieftain.     Sudden  left  alone 

With  weapon  bare,  the  multitude  aloof, 

Silva  was  mazed  in  doubtful  consciousness. 

As  one  who  slumbering  in  the  day  awakes 

From  striving  into  freedom,  and  yet  feels 

His  sense  half  captive  to  intangible  things; 

Then  with  a  flush  of  new  decision  sheathed 

His  futile  naked  weapon,  and  strode  quick 

To  Zarca,  speaking  witJi  a  voice  new-toned. 

The  struggling  soul's  hoarse  suffocated  cry 

Beneath  the  grappling  anguish  of  despair.] 

Doif  Silva. 

You,  Zincalo,  devil,  blackest  infidel! 
You  cannot  hate  that  man  as  you  hate  me! 
Finish  your  torture — take  me — lift  me  up 
And  let  the  crowd  spit  at  me — every  Moor 
Shoot  reeds  at  me,  and  kill  me  with  slow  death 
Beneath  the  midday  fervor  of  the  sun — 
Or  crucifv  me  with  a  thieving  hound — 
Slake  your  hate  so,  and  I  will  thank  it:  spare  me 
Only  this  man! 

Zarca. 

Madman,  I  hate  you  not. 
But  if  I  did,  my  hate  were  poorly  served 
By  my  device,  if  I  should  strive  to  mix 
A  bitterer  misery  for  you  than  to  taste 
With  leisure  of  a  soufin  uiiluirmed  limbs 
The  flavor  of  your  folly.     For  my  course, 


4Hf;  THE    SPANISH    GYPSY. 

It  has  a,  goal,  and  takes  no  truant  path 
Because  of  you.     I  am  your  chief:  to  me 
You're  naught  more  than  a  Zincalo  in  revolt. 

Don  Silva. 

No,  Tm  no  Zincalo!     I  here  disown 
The  name  I  took  in  madness.     Here  I  tear 
This  badge  away.     I  am  a  Catholic  knight, 
A  Spaniard  who  will  die  a  Spaniard's  deathl 

[Hark!  while  he  casts  the  badge  upon  the  ground 

And  tramples  on  it,  Silva  hears  a  shout: 

Was  it  a  shout  that  threatened  him?     He  looked 

From  out  the  dizzying  flames  of  his  own  rage 

In  hope  of  adversaries — and  he  saw  above 

The  form  of  Father  Isidor  upswung 

Convulsed  with  martyr  throes;  and  knew  the  shout 

For  wonted  exultation  of  the  crowd 

When  malefactors  die — or  saints,  or  heroes. 

And  now  to  him  that  white-frocked  murdered  form 

Which  hanging  judged  him  as  its  murderer. 

Turned  to  a  symbol  of  his  guilt,  and  stirred 

Tremors  till  then  unwaked.     With  sudden  snatch 

At  something  hidden  in  his  breast,  he  strode 

Eight  upon  Zarca:  at  the  instant,  down 

Fell  the  great  chief,  and  Silva,  staggering  back. 

Heard  not  the  Gypsies'  shriek,  felt  not  the  fangs 

Of  their  fierce  grasp — heard,  felt  but  Zarca's  words 

Which  seemed  1iis  soul  outleaping  in  a  cry. 

And  urging  men  to  run  like  rival  waves 

Whose  rivalry  is  but  obedience.] 

Zakca  {as  he  falls). 
My  daughter!  call  her!     Call  my  daughter! 

Nadar  {supporting  Zarca  a7id  crying  to  the  Gypsies  tvho 
have  clutched  Silva). 

Stay! 

Tear  not  the  Spaniard,  tie  him  to  the  stake: 
Hear  what  the  Chief  shall  bid  us — there  is  time! 

[Swiftly  they  tied  him,  pleasing  vengeance  so 
With  promise  that  would  leave  them  free  to  watch 


THE    SPANISH    GYPSY.  487 

Their  stricken  good,  their  Chief  stretched  iielplesslj 

Pillowed  upon  the  strength  of  loving  limbs. 

He  heaved  low  groans,  but  would  not  spend  his  breath 

In  useless  words:  he  waited  till  she  came, 

Keeping  his  life  within  the  citadel 

Of  one  great  hojDe.     And  now  around  him  closed 

(But  in  wide  circle,  checked  by  loving  fear) 

His  people  all,  holding  their  wails  suppressed 

Lest  death  believed-in  should  be  over- bold: 

All  life  hung  on  their  Chief — he  would  not  die; 

His  image  gone,  there  were  no  wholeness  left 

To  make  a  world  of  for  the  Zincali's  thought. 

Eager  they  stood,  but  hushed;  the  outer  crowd 

Spoke  only  in  low  murmurs,  and  some  climbed 

And  clung  with  legs  and  arms  on  perilous  coigns. 

Striving  to  see  where  that  colossal  life 

Lay  panting — lay  a  Titan  struggliug  still 

To  hold  and  give  the  precious  hiddei\  fire 

Before  the  stronger  grappled  him.     Above 

The  young  bright  morning  cast  athwart  white  walls 

Her  shadows  blue,  and  with  their  clear-cut  line, 

Mildly  relentless  as  the  dial-hand's, 

Measured  the  shrinking  future  of  an  hour 

Which  held  a  shrinking  hope.     And  all  the  while 

The  silent  beat  of  time  in  each  man's  soul 

Made  aching  pulses. 

But  the  cry,  "  She  comes  ! " 
Parted  the  crowd  like  waters:  and  she  came. 
Swiftly  as  once  before,  inspired  with  joy. 
She  flashed  across  the  space  and  made  new  light. 
Glowing  upon  the  glow  of  evening, 
So  swiftlv  now  she  came,  inspired  with  woe. 
Strong  with  the  strength  of  all  her  father's  pain. 
Thrilling  her  as  with  fire  of  rage  divine 
And  battling  energy.     She  knew— saw  all: 
The  stake  with  Silva  bound— her  fatber  pierced— 
To  this  she  had  been  born:  a  second  time 
Her  father  called  her  to  the  task  of  life. 

She  knelt  beside  him.     Then  he  raised  himself. 
And  on  her  face  there  flashed  from  his  the  light 
As  of  a  star  that  v/aned,  but  flames  anew 
Ir.  mighty  dissolution:  'twas  tbe  flame 
Of  a  surviving  trust,  in  agony. 


488  THE    SPANISH    GYPSY. 

He  spoke  the  parting  prayer  that  was  command. 
Must  sway  her  will,  and  reign  invisibly.  ] 

Zarca. 

My  daughter,  you  have  promised — you  will  live 

To  save  our  people.     In  my  garments  here 

I  carry  written  pledges  from  the  Moor: 

He  will  keep  faith  in  Spain  and  Africa. 

Your  weakness  may  be  stronger  than  my  strength, 

Winning  more  love. 1  cannot  tell  the  end. 

I  held  my  people's  good  within  my  breast. 

Behold,  now  I  deliver  it  to  you. 

See,  it  still  breathes  unstrangled — if  it  dies. 

Let  not  your  failing  will  be  murderer. 

Eise,  tell  our  people  now  I  wait  in  pain 

I  cannot  die  until  I  hear  them  say 
They  will  obey  you. 

[Meek,  she  pressed  her  lips 
With  slow  solemnity  upon  his  brow. 
Sealing  her  pledges.     Firmly  then  she  rose, 
And  met  her  people's  eyes  with  kindred  gaze. 
Dark-flashing,  fired  by  effort  strenuous 
Trampling  on  pain.] 

Fedalma. 

Ye  Zincali,  all  who  hear! 
Your  Chief  is  dying:  I,  his  daughter,  live 
To  do  his  dying  will.     He  asks  you  now 
To  promise  me  obedience  as  your  Queen, 
That  we  may  seek  the  land  he  won  for  us, 
And  live  the  better  life  for  which  he  toiled. 
Speak  now,  and  fill  my  father's  dying  ear 
With  promise  that  you  will  obey  him  dead. 
Obeying  me  his  child. 

[Straightway  arose 
A  shout  of  promise,  sharpening  into  cries 
That  seemed  to  plead  despairingly  with  death.] 

The  Zincali. 

We  will  obey!     Our  Chief  shall  never  die! 
We  will  obey  him — will  obey  our  Queen! 


THE    SPANISH   GYPSY.  -181) 

[The  shout  unanimous,  the  concurrent  rush 

Of  many  voices,  choiring,  shook  the  air 

With  multitudinous  wave:  now  rose,  now  fell. 

Then  rose  again,  the  echoes  following  slow, 

As  if  the  scattered  brethren  of  the  tribe 

Had  caught  afar  and  joined  the  ready  vow. 

Then  some  could  hold  no  longer,  but  must  rush 

To  kiss  his  dying  feet,  and  some  to  kiss 

The  hem  of  their  Queen's  garment.     But  she  raised 

Her  hand  to  hush  them.     "Hark!  j-our  Chief  may 

speak 
Another  wish."     Quickly  she  kneeled  again. 
While  they  upon  the  ground  kept  motionless. 
With  head  outstretched.     They  heard  his  words;  for 

now. 
Grasping  at  Nadar's  arm,  he  spoke  more  loud, 
As  one  who,  having  fought  and  conquered,  hurls 
His  strength  away  with  hurling  off  his  shield.] 

Zarca. 

Let  loose  the  Spaniard!  give  him  back  his  sword; 
He  cannot  move  to  any  vengeance  more — 
His  soul  is  locked  'tvrixt  two  opposing  crimes. 
I  charge  you  let  him  go  unharmed  and  free 
Now  through  your  midst. 

[Witli  that  he  sank  again — 
His  brea,st  heaved  strongly  tow'rd  sliarp  sudden  falls, 
And  all  his  life  seemed  needed  for  each  breath: 
Yet  once  he  spoke.] 

My  daugliter,  lay  your  arm 

Beneath  my  head so bend  and  breathe  on  me. 

I  cannot  see  you  more the  nigbt  is  come. 

Be  strong remember 1  can  onl}^ die. 

[His  voice  wont  into  silence,  but  his  breast 

Heaved  long  and  moaned:  its  broad  strength  kept  a  life 

That  heard"  naught,  saw  naught,  save  what  once  had 

been. 
And  what  miglit  be  in  days  and  realms  afar — 
Which  now  in  pale  procession  faded  on 
Toward  the  thick  darkness.     And  she  bent  above 
In  sacramental  watch  to  see  great  Death, 
Companion  of  her  future,  who  would  wear 
Forever  in  her  eyes  her  father's  form. 


490  THE    SPAJflSH    GYPSY. 

And  yet  she  knew  that  hurrying  feet  had  gone 

To  do  the  Chiefs  behest,  and  in  her  soul 

He  who  was  once  its  lord  was  heing  jarred 

With  loosening  of  cords,  that  would  not  loose 

The  tightening  torture  of  his  anguish.     This — 

Oh,  she  knew  it!— knew  it  as  martyrs  knew 

The  prongs  that  tore  their  flesh,  while  yet  their  tongues 

Eefused  the  ease  of  lies.     In  moments  high 

Space  widens  in  the  soul.     And  so  she  knelt. 

Clinging  with  piety  and  awed  resolve 

Beside  this  altar  of  her  father^s  life. 

Seeing  long  travel  under  solemn  suns 

Stretching  beyond  it;  never  turned  her  eyes. 

Yet  felt  that  Silva  passed;  beheld  his  face 

Pale,  vivid,  all  alone,  imploring  her 

Across  black  waters  fathomless. 

And  he  passed. 
The  Gypsies  made  wide  patlaway,  shrank  aloof 
As  those  who  fear  to  touch  the  thing  tliey  hate. 
Lest  hate  triumphant,  mastering  all  the  limbs. 
Should  tear,  bite,  crush,  in  spite  of  hindering  will. 
Slowly  he  walked,  reluctant  to  be  safe 
And  bear  dishonored  life  v/hich  none  assailed; 
Walked  hesitatingly,  all  his  frame  instinct 
With  high-born  spirit,  never  used  to  dread 
Or  crouch  for  smiles,  yet  stung,  yet  quivering 
With  helpless  strength,  and  in  his  soul  convulsed 
By  visions  where  pale  horror  held  a  lamp 
Over  widc-reacliing  crime.     Silence  hung  I'onnd: 
It  seemed  the  Pla9a  hushed  itself  to  hear 
His  footsteps  and  the  Chief's  deep-d}ing  breath. 
Eyes  quickened  in  the  stillness,  and  the  light 
Seemed  one  clear  gaze  upon  his  misery. 
And  yet  lie  could  not  pass  her  without  pause: 
One  instant  he  must  pause  and  look  at  her; 
But  vvith  that  glance  at  her  averted  head, 
New-urged  by  pain  he  turned  away  and  went. 
Carrying  forever  with  him  what  ho  fled — 
Her  murdered  love — her  love,  a  dear  wronged  ghost. 
Facing  him,  bcnuteous,  'mid  the  throngs  of  hell. 

Oh  fallen  and  forsaken!  were  no  hearts 
Amid  that  crowd,  mindful  of  what  liad  been? — 
Hearts  such  as  wait  on  beggared  royalty. 
Or  silent  watch  by  sinners  who  despair? 


THE    SPANISH    GYPSY.  491 

Silva  had  vanished.     That  dismissed  revenge 
Made  hirger  room  for  sorrow  in  fierce  hearts; 
And  sorrow  filled  them.     For  the  Chief  was  dead. 
The  mighty  breast  subsided  slow  to  calm. 
Slow  from  the  face  the  ethereal  sj)irit  waned. 
As  wanes  the  parting  glory  from  the  heights. 
And  leaves  them  in  their  pallid  majesty. 
Fedalma  kissed  the  marble  lips,  and  said, 
"  He  breathes  no  more."     And  then  a  long  loud  wail. 
Poured  out  upon  the  morning,  made  her  light 
Ghastly  as  smiles  on  some  fair  maniac's  face 
Smiling  unconscious  o'er  her  bridegroom's  corse. 
The  wailing  men  in  eager  press  closed  round. 
And  made  a  shadowing  pall  beneath  the  sun. 
They  lifted  reverent  the  prostrate  strength. 
Sceptred  anew  by  death.     Fedalma  walked 
Tearless,  erect,  following  the  dead — her  cries 
Deep  smothering  in  her  breast,  as  one  who  guides 
Her  children  through  the  wilds,  and  sees  and  knows 
Of  danger  more  than  they,  and  feels  more  pangs. 
Yet  shrinks  not,  groans  not,  bearing  in  her  heart 
Their  ignorant  misery  and  their  trust  in  her. 


BOOK    V. 


The  eastward  rocks  of  Almeria's  bay 

Answer  long  farewells  of  the  traveling  sun 

With  softest  glow  as  from  an  inward  pulse 

Changing  and  flashing:  all  the  Moorish  ships 

Seem  conscious  too^  and  shoot  out  sudden  shadows; 

Their  black  hulls  snatch  a  glory,  and  their  sails 

Show  variegated  radiance,  gently  stirred 

Like  broad  wings  poised.     Two  galleys  moored  apart 

Show  decks  as  busy  as  a  home  of  ants 

Storing  new  forage;  from  their  sides  the  boats, 

Slowly  pushed  ofl",  anon  Avith  flasliing  oar 

Make  transit  to  the  quay's  smooth-quarried  edge. 

Where  thronging  Gypsies  are  in  haste  to  lade 

Each  as  it  comes  with  grandamcs,  babes  and  wives. 

Or  with  dust-tinted  goods,  the  company 

Of  wandering  years.     Xaught  seems  to  lie  unmoved, 


492  THE    SPANISH    GYPSY. 

For  ^mid  the  throng  the  lights  and  shadows  play. 

And  make  all  surface  eager,  while  the  boats 

Sway  restless  as  a  horse  that  heard  the  shouts 

And  surging  hum  incessant.     Naked  limbs 

With  beauteous  ease  bend,  lift,  and  thi'ow,  or  raise 

High  signaling  hands.    The  black-haired  mother  steps 

Athwart  the  boat's  edge,  and  Avith  opened  arms, 

A  wandering  Isis  outcast  from  the  gods. 

Leans  toward  her  lifted  little  one.     The  boat 

Full-laden  cuts  the  waves,  and  dirge-like  cries 

Eise  and  then  fall  within  it  as  it  moves 

From  high  to  lower  and  from  bright  to  dark. 

Hither  and  thither,  grave  white-turbaned  Moors 

Move  helpfully,  and  some  Ijring  welcome  gifts, 

Briglit  stuffs  and  cutlery,  and  bags  of  seed 

To  make  new  waving  crops  in  Africa. 

Others  aloof  with  folded  arms  slow-eyed 

Survey  man's  labor,  saying  "God  is  great ^'; 

Or  seek  with  question  deep  the  Gypsies'  root, 

And  whether  their  false  faith,  being  small,  will  prove 

Less  damning  than  the  copious  false  creeds 

Of  Jews  and  Christians:  Moslem  subtlety 

Found  balanced  reasons,  warranting  suspense 

As  to  whose  hell  was  deepest — 'twas  enough 

That  there  was  room  for  all.     Thus  the  sedate. 

The  younger  heads  v/ere  busy  with  the  tale 

Of  that  great  Chief  whose  exploits  helped  the  Moor. 

And,  talking  still,  they  shouldered  past  their  friends 

Following  some  lure  which  held  their  distant  gaze 

To  eastward  of  the  quay,  where  yet  remained 

A  low  black  tent  close  guarded  all  around 

By  well-armed  Gypsies.     Fronting  it  above. 

Raised  by  stone  steps  that  sought  a  jutting  strand, 

Fedalma  stood  and  marked  with  anxious  watch 

Each  laden  boat  the  remnant  lessening 

Of  cargo  on  the  shore,  or  traced  the  course 

Of  Nadar  to  an  fro  in  hard  command 

Of  noisy  tumult;  imaging  oft  anew 

How  much  of  labor  still  deferred  the  hour 

When  they  must  lift  the  boat  and  bear  away 

Her  father's  coffin,  and  her  feet  must  quit 

This  shore  forever.     Motionless  she  stood. 

Black-crowned  with  wreaths  of  many-shadowed  hair; 

Black-robed,  but  bearing  wide  upon  her  breast 

Her  father's  golden  necklace  ^nd  h\^  badge. 


THE    SPANISH    GYPSY.  493 

Her  limbs  were  motionless,  but  in  her  eyes 
And  in  her  breathing  lip's  soft  tremulons  curve 
Was  intense  motion  as  of  prisoned  fire 
Escaping  subtly  in  outleaping  thought. 

She  watches  anxiously,  and  yet  she  dreams: 

The  busy  moments  now  expand,  now  shrink 

To  narrowing  swarms  within  the  refluent  space 

Of  changeful  consciousness.     For  in  her  thought 

Already  she  has  left  the  fading  shore. 

Sails  with  her  people,  seeks  an  unknown  land. 

And  bears  the  burning  lengtli  of  weary  days 

That  parching  fall  upon  her  father's  liope, 

AYhich  she  must  plant  and  see  it  wither  only — 

Wither  and  die.     She  saw  the  end  begun. 

The  Grypsy  hearts  were  not  unfaithful:  she 

Was  centre  to  the  savage  loyalty 

Which  vowed  obedience  to  Zarca  dead. 

But  soon  their  natures  missed  the  constant  stress 

Of  his  command,  that,  while  it  fired,  restrained 

By  urgency  supreme,  and  left  no  play 

To  fickle  impulse  scattering  desire. 

They  loved  their  Queen,  trusted  in  Zarca's  child. 

Would  bear  her  o'er  the  desert  on  their  arms 

And  think  the  weight  a  gladsome  victory; 

But  that  great  force  which  knit  them  into  one. 

The  invisible  passion  of  her  father's  soul. 

That  wrought  them  visibly  into  his  will. 

And  would  have  bound  their  lives  witli  permanence. 

Was  gone.     Already  Hassan  and  two  bands. 

Drawn  by  fresh  baits  of  gain,  liad  newly  sold 

Their  service  to  the  Moors,  despite  her  call. 

Known  as  the  echo  of  her  father's  will, 

To  all  the  tribe,  that  they  should  pass  with  her 

Straightwav  to  Tclemsan.     Thev  were  not  moved 

By  Avorse  rebellion  than  the  Avilful  wish 

To  fashion  their  own  service;  they  still  meant 

To  come  when  it  should  suit  them.     But  she  said. 

This  is  the  cloud  no  bigger  than  a  hand. 

Sure-threatening.     In  a  little  while,  the  tribe 

That  was  to  be  the  ensign  of  the  race. 

And  draw  it  into  conscious  union. 

Itself  would  break  in  small  and  scattered  bands 

That,  living  on  scant  prey,  would  still  disperse 

And  propagate  forgctfulness.     Brief  years. 


■V94  THE    SPANISH    GYPSY. 

« 

And  that  great  purpose  fed  with  vital  fire 
That  might  have  glowed  for  half  a  century. 
Subduing,  quickening,  shaping,  like  a  sun — 
Would  be  a  faint  tradition,  flickering  low 
In  dying  memories,  fringing  with  dim  light 
The  nearer  dark. 

Far,  far  the  future  stretched 
Beyond  that  busy  present  on  the  quay. 
Far  her  straight  path  beyond  it.     Yet  she  watched 
To  mark  the  growing  hour,  and  "yet  in  dream 
Alternate  she  beheld  another  track, 
And  felt  herself  unseen  pursuing  it 
Close  to  a  wanderer,  who  with  haggard  gaze 
Looked  out  on  loneliness.     The  backward  years — 
Oh,  she  would  not  forget  them — would  not  drink 
Of  waters  that  brought  rest,  Avhile  he  far  off 
Remembered.     "Father,  I  renounced  the  joy; 
You  must  forgive  the  sorrow." 

So  she  stood. 
Her  struggling  life  compressed  into  that  hour. 
Yearning,  resolving,  conquering;  though  she  seemed 
Still  as  a  tutelary  image  sent 
To  guard  her  people  and  to  be  the  strength 
Of  some  rock-citadel. 

Below  her  sat 
Slim  mischievous  Hinda,  happy,  red-bedecked 
With  rows  of  berries,  grinning,  nodding  oft. 
And  shaking  high  her  small  dark  arm  and  hand 
Eesponsive  to  the  black-named  Israael, 
Who  held  aloft  his  spoil,  and  clad  in  skins 
Seemed  the  Boy-prophet  of  the  wilderness 
Escaped  from  tasks  prophetic.     But  anon 
Hinda  would  backward  turn  upon  her  knees. 
And  like  a  pretty  loving  hound  would  bend 
To  fondle  her  Queen's  feet,  then  lift  her  head 
Hoping  to  feel  the  gently  pressing  pahn 
Which  touched  the  deeper  sense      Fedalma  knew — 
From  out  the  black  robe  stretched  her  speaking  hand 
And  shared  the  girl's  content. 

So  the  dire  hours 
Burdened  with  destiny — the  death  of  hopes 
Darkening  long  generations,  or  the  birtli 
Of  thoughts  undying — such  hours  sweep  along 
In  their  aerial  ocean  measureless 
Myriads  of  little  joys,  that  ripen  sweet 


THE   SPANISH   GYPSY.  495 

And  soothe  the  sorrowful  spirit  of  the  world, 
Groaning  and  travailing  with  the  painful  birth 
Of  slow  redemption. 

But  emerging  now 
From  eastward  fringing  lines  of  idling  men 
Quick  Juan  lightly  sought  the  upward  steps 
Behind  Fedalma,  and  two  paces  off, 
With  head  uncovered,  said  in  gentle  tones, 
"Lady  Fedalma!" — (Juan^s  password  now 
Used  by  no  other),  and  Fedalma  turned, 
Knowing  who  sought  her.     He  advanced  a  step, 
And  meeting  straight  her  large  calm  questioning  gaze, 
Warned  her  of  some  grave  purport  by  a  face 
That  told  of  trouble.     Lower  still  he  spoke. 

Juan. 

Look  from  me,  lady,  toward  a  moving  form 

That  quits  the  crowd  and  seeks  the  lonelier  strand — 

A  tall  and  gray-clad  pilgrim. 

[Solemnly 
His  low  tones  fell  on  her,  as  if  she  passed 
Into  religious  dimness  among  tombs. 
And  trod  on  names  in  everlasting  rest. 
Lingeringly  she  looked,  and  then  with  voice 
Deep  and  yet  soft,  like  notes  from  some  long  chord 
Responsive  to  thrilled  air,  said — ] 

Fedalma. 

It  is  he! 

[Juan  kept  silence  for  a  little  space. 
With  reverent  caution,  lest  his  lighter  grief 
Might  seem  a  wanton  touch  upon  her  pain. 
But  time  was  urging  him  witli  visible  llight. 
Changing  the  shadows:  he  must  utter  all.] 

Juan. 

That  man  was  young  when  last  I  pressed  liis  hand — 

In  that  dread  moment  when  he  left  Bedmar. 

He  has  aged  since,  the  week  has  made  liim  gray. 

And  yet  I  knew  him — knew  the  white-streaked  hair 

Before  I  saw  his  face,  as  I  should  know 

The  tear-dimmed  writing  of  a  frieiul.     8ee  now — 

Does  he  not  linger — pause? perhaps  expect 


496  THE   SPANISH   GYPSY, 

[Juan  pled  timidly:  Fedalm?  *s  eyes 

Flushed;  and  through  all  her  frame  there  ran  the  shock 

Of  some  sharp-wounding  joy,  like  his  who  hastes 

And  dreads  to  come  too  late,  and  comes  in  time 

To  press  a  loved  hand  dying.     She  was  mute 

And  made  no  gesture:  all  her  being  paused 

In  resolution,  as  some  leonine  wave 

That  makes  a  moment's  silence  ere  it  leaps.] 

JUAN". 

He  came  from  Carthagena,  in  a  boat 
Too  slight  for  safety;  yon  small  two-oared  boat 
Below  the  rock;  the  fisher-boy  within 
Awaits  his  signal.     But  the  pilgrim  waits. 

Fedalma. 

Yes,  I  will  go! — Father,  I  owe  him  this. 

For  loving  me  made  all  his  misery. 

And  we  will  look  once  more — will  say  farewell 

As  in  a  solemn  rite  to  strengthen  us 

For  our  eternal  parting.     Juan,  stay 

Here  in  my  place,  to  warn  me,  were  there  need. 

And  Hinda,  follow  me! 

[All  men  who  watched 

Lost  her  regretfully,  then  drew  content 

From  thought  that  she  must  quickly  come  again. 

And  filled  the  time  with  striving  to  be  near. 

She,  down  the  steps,  along  the  sandy  brink 

To  where  he  stood,  walked  firm;  with  quickened  step 

The  moment  when  each  felt  the  other  saw. 

He  moved  at  sight  of  her:  their  glances  met; 

It  seemed  they  could  no  more  remain  aloof 

Than  nearing  waters  hurrying  into  one. 

Yet  their  steps  slackened  and  they  paused  apart, 

Pressed  backward  by  the  force  of  memories 

Which  reigned  supreme  as  death  above  desire. 

Two  paces  off  they  stood  and  silently 

Looked  at  each  other.     Was  it  well  to  speak? 

Could  speech  be  clearer,  stronger,  tell  them  more 

Than  that  long  gaze  of  their  renouncing  love? 

They  passed  from  silence  hardly  knowing  how; 

It  seemed  they  heard  each  other's  thought  before.] 


THE   SPANISH   GYPSf.  49? 


DoJSr  SiLVA. 


I  go  to  be  absolved,  to  have  my  life 

Washed  into  fitness  for  an  offering 

To  injured  Spain.     But  I  have  naught  to  give 

For  that  lust  injury  to  her  P  loved 

Better  than  I  loved  Spain.     I  am  accurst 

Above  all  sinners,  being  made  tlie  curse 

Of  her  I  sinned  for.     Pardon?  Peni-tence? 

Whpn  they  have  dono  their  utmost,  still  beyond 

Out  of  tlieir  reach  stands  Injury  unchanged 

And  changeless.     I  should  see  it  still  in  heaven — 

Out  of  my  reach,  forever  in  my  sight: 

Wearing  your  grief,  'twould  hide  the  smiling  seraphs. 

I  bring  no  puling  prayer,  Fedalma — ask 

No  balm  of  pardon  that  may  soothe  my  soul 

For  others'  bleeding  wounds:  I  am  not  come 

To  say,  "Forgive  me":  you  must  not  forgive. 

For  you  must  see  me  ever  as  I  am — 

Your  father's 

Fedalma. 

Speak  it  not!     Calamity 
Comes  like  a  deluge  and  o'erflows  our  crimes, 
Till  sin  is  hidden  in  Avoe.     You — I — we  two. 
Grasping  we  knew  not  what,  that  seemed  delight. 
Opened  the  sluices  of  that  deep. 

Doisr  SiLVA. 

We  two? — 
Fedalma,  you  were  blameless,  helpless. 

Fedalma. 

Nol 
It  shall  not  be  that  you  did  aught  alone. 
For  when  we  loved  I  willed  to  reign  in  you. 
And  I  was  jealous  even  of  the  day 
If  it  could  gladden  you  apart  from  me. 
And  so,  it  must  be  that  I  shared  each  deed 
Our  love  was  root  of. 

Don  Silva. 

Dear!  you  share  the  woe — 
Nay,  the  worst  dart  of  vengeanee  fell  on  you. 


i98  THE   SPANISH   GYPSY. 

Fedalma. 

Vengeance!     She  does  but  sweep  us  with  her  skirts — 
She  takes  hirge  space,  and  lies  a  baleful  light 
Eevolving  with  long  years — sees  children's  children, 
Blights  them  in  their  prime — Oh,  if  two  lovers  leaned 
To  breathe  one  air  and  spread  a  pestilence. 
They  would  but  lie  two  livid  victims  dead 
Amid  the  city  of  the  dying.     We 
With  our  poor  petty  lives  have  strangled  one* 
That  ages  watch  for  vainly. 

Don  Silva. 

Deep  despair 
Fills  all  your  tones  as  with  slow  agony. 
Speak  words  that  narrow  anguish  to  some  shape: 
Tell  me  what  dread  is  close  before  you? 

Fedalma. 

None. 

No  dread,  but  clear  assurance  of  the  end. 
My  father  held  within  his  mighty  frame 
A  people's  life:  great  futures  died  with  him 
Never  to  rise,  until  the  time  shall  ripe 
Some  other  hero  with  tlie  will  to  save 
The  outcast  Zincali. 

Don  Silva. 

And  yet  their  shout — 
I  heard  it — sounded  as  the  plenteous  rush 
Of  full-fed  sources,  shaking  their  wild  souls 
With  power  that  promised  sway. 

Fedalma. 

Ah,  yes,  that  shout 
Came  from  full  hearts:  they  meant  obedience. 
But  they  are  orphaned:  their  poor  childish  feet 
Are  vagabond  in  spite  of  love,  and  stray 
Forgetful  after  little  lures.     For  me — 
I  am  but  as  the  funeral  urn  that  bears 
The  ashes  of  a  leader. 

Don  Silva. 

0  great  Grod! 
What  am  I  but  a  miserable  brand 


THE   SPANISH   GYPSY.  4S9 

Lit  by  mystorious  wrath?     I  lie  cast  down 
A  blackened  branch  iipon  the  desolate  ground 
Where  once  I  kindled  ruin,     I  shall  drink 
No  cup  of  purest  water  but  will  taste 
Bitter  with  thy  lone  hopelessness,  Fedalma. 

Fedalma. 

Nay,  Silva,  think  of  me  as  one  who  sees 
A  light  serene  and  strong  on  one  sole  path 

Which  she  will  tread  till  death 

He  trusted  me,  and  I  will  keep  his  trust: 

My  life  shall  be  its  temple.     I  will  plant 

His  sacred  hope  within  the  sanctuary 

And  die  its  priestess — though  I  die  alone, 

A  hoary  woman  on  the  altar-step. 

Cold  'mid  cold  ashes.     That  is  my  chief  good. 

The  deepest  hunger  of  a  faithful  heart 

Is  faithfulness.     Wish  me  naught  else.     And  you— 

You  too  will  live 

Do]sr  Silva. 

I  go  to  Rome,  to  seek 
The  right  to  use  my  knightly  sAvord  again; 
The  right  to  fill  my  place  and  live  or  die 
So  that  ail  Spaniards  shall  not  curse  my  name. 
I  sat  one  hour  upon  the  barren  rock 
And  longed  to  kill  myself;  but  then  I  said, 
I  will  not  leave  my  name  in  infamy, 
I  will  not  be  perpetual  rottenness 
Upon  the  Spaniard^  air.     If  I  must  sink 
At  last  to  hell,  I  will  not  take  my  stand 
Among  the  coward  crew  who  could  not  bear 
The  harm  themselves  had  done,  which  others  bore. 
My  young  life  yet  may  fill  some  fatal  breach. 
And  I  will  take  no  pardon,  not  my  own. 
Not  God's — no  pardon  idly  on  my  knees: 
But  it  shall  come  to  me  upon  my  feet 
And  in  the  thick  of  action,  and  each  deed 
That  carried  shame  and  wrong  shall  be  the  sting 
That  drives  me  higlier  up  the  steep  of  honor 
In  deeds  of  duteous  service  to  that  Spain 
Who  nourished  me  on  lier  expectant  I)i'east, 
The  heir  of  liighest  gifts.     I  will  not  fling 
My  earthly  being  down  for  carrion 


OOO  THE    SPANISH    GYPSY. 

To  fill  tlie  air  with  loathing:  I  will  be 

The  living  prey  of  some  fierce  noble  death 

That  leaps  upon  me  while  I  move.     Aloud 

I  said,  ''  I  will  redeem  my  name,"  and  then — 

I  know  not  if  aloud:  I  felt  the  words 

Drinking  up  all  my  senses — "  She  still  lives. 

I  would  not  quit  the  dear  familiar  earth 

Where  both  of  us  behold  the  self-same  sun. 

Where  there  can  be  no  strangeness  ^twixt  our  thoughts.- 

So  fleep  as  their  communion. ''     Eesokite 

I  rose  and  walked. — Fedalma,  think  of  me 

As  one  who  will  regain  the  only  life 

Where  he  is  other  than  apostate — one 

Who  seeks  but  to  renew  and  keep  the  vows 

Of  Spanish  knight  and  noble.     But  the  breach 

Outside  those  vows — the  fatal  second  breach — 

Lies  a  dark  gulf  where  I  have  naught  to  cast. 

Not  even  expiation — poor  pretense, 

Which  changes  naught  but  what  survives  tVie  past. 

And  raises  not  the  dead.     That  deep  dark  gulf 

Divides  us. 

Fedalma. 

Yes,  forever.     We  must  walk 
Apart  unto  the  end.     Our  marriage  rite 
Is  our  resolve  that  we  will  each  be  true 
To  high  allegiance,  higher  than  our  love. 
Our  dear  young  love — its  breath  was  happiness! 
But  it  had  grown  upon  a  larger  life 
Which  tore  its  roots  asunder.     We  rebelled — 
The  larger  life  subdued  us.     Yet  we  are  wed; 
For  we  shall  carry  each  the  pressure  deep 
Of  the  other's  soul.     I  soon  shall  leave  the  shore. 
The  winds  to-night  will  bear  me  far  away 
My  lord,  farewell! 

He  did  not  say  ''Farewell.*^ 
But  neither  knew  that  he  was  silent.     She, 
For  one  long  moment,  moved  not.    They  knew  naught 
Save  that  they  parted;  for  their  mutual  gaze 
As  with  their  souFs  full  speech  forbade  their  hands 
To  seek  each  other — those  oft-clasping  hands 
Which  had  a  memory  of  their  own,  and  went 
Widowed  of  one  dear  touch  foreverniore. 


f( 


THE   SPANISH   GYPSY.  501 

At  last  she  turned  and  with  swift,  movement  passed. 
Beckoning  to  Hinda,  who  was  bending  low 
And  lingered  still  to  wash  her  shells,  but  soon 
Leaping  and  scampering  followed,  while  her  Queen 
Mounted  the  stejDS  again  and  took  her  place, 
Which  Juan  rendered  silently. 

And  HOW 
The  press  upon  the  quay  was  thinned;  the  ground 
Was  cleared  of  cumbering  heaps,  the  eager  shouts 
Had  sunk,  and  left  a  murmur  more  restrained 
By  common  purpose.     All  the  men  ashore 
Were  gathering  into  ordered  companies, 
And  with  less  clamor  filled  the  w^aiting  boats 
As  if  the  speaking  light  commanded  them 
To  quiet  speed:  for  now  the  farewell  glow 
Was  on  the  topmost  heights,  and  wliere  far  ships 
Were  southward  tending,  tranquil,  slow,  and  white 
Upon  the  luminous  meadow  toward  the  verge. 
The  quay  was  in  still  sluidow,  and  the  boats  ■ 
Went  sombrely  upon  the  sombre  waves. 
Fedalma  watched  again;  but  now  her  gaze 
Takes  in  the  eastward  bay,  where  that  small  bark 
Which  held  the  fisher-boy  floats  weightier 
With  one  more  life,  that  rests  upon  the  oar 
Watching  with  her.     He  would  not  go  away 
Till  she  was  gone;  he  would  not  turn  his  face 
Away  from  her  at  parting:  but  the  sea 
Should  widen  slowly  'twixt  their  seeking  eyes. 

The  time  was  coming.     Nadar  had  approached. 

Was  the  Queen  ready?     Would  she  follow  now 

Her  father's  body?     For  the  largest  boat 

Was  waiting  at  the  quay,  the  last  strong  band 

Of  Zincali  had  ranged  themselves  in  hues 

To  guard  her  passage  and  to  follow  her. 

Yes,  T  am  ready";  and  with  action  prompt 

They  cast  aside  the  Gypsy's  wandering  tomb. 

And  fenced  the  space  "from  curious  ]Mours  who  pressed 

To  see  Chief  Zarca's  coffin  as  it  lay. 

They  raised  it  slowly,  holding  it  aloft 

On  shoulders  proud  to  bear  the  heavy  load. 

Bound  on  the  coffin  lay  the  chieftain's  arms, 

His  Gypsy  garments  and  his  coat  of  mail. 

Fedalma  saw  the  burden  lifted  high. 

And  then  descending  followed.     All  was  stilL 


503  THE   SPANISH    GYPSY. 

The  Moors  aloof  conld  hear  the  struggling  steps 
Beneath  the  lowered  burden  at  the  boat — 
The  struggling  calls  subdued,  till  safe  released 
It  lay  within,  the  space  around  it  filled 
By  black-haired  Gypsies.     Then  Fedalma  stepped 
From  off  the  shore  and  saw  it  flee  away — 
The  land  that  bred  her  helping  the  resolve 
Which  exiled  her  forever. 

It  was  night 
Before  the  ships  weighed  anchor  and  gave  sail: 
Fresh  Night  emergent  in  her  clearness,  lit 
By  the  large  crescent  moon,  with  Hesperus, 
And  those  great  stars  that  lead  the  eager  host. 
Fedalma  stood  and  watched  the  little  bark 
Lying  jet-black  upon  moon-whitened  waves. 
Silva  was  standing  too.     He  too  divined 
A  steadfast  form  that  held  him  with  its  thought. 
And  eyes  that  sought  him  vanishing:  he  saw 
The  waters  widen  slowly,  till  at  last 
Straining  he  gazed,  and  knew  not  if  he  gazed 
On  aught  but  blackness  overhung  by  stars. 


THE  END- 


NOTES. 


Page  320.     Cachhs. 

The  Indian  fig  (Opuntia)  like  the  other  Gartacem,  is  believed  to  have 
been  introduced  into  Europe  from  South  America;  but  everj^  one 
who  lias  been  in  the  south  of  Spain  will  understand  why  the 
anachronism  has  been  chosen. 


Page  402.     Marranos. 

The  name  given  by  the  Spanish  Jews  to  the  multitudes  of  their  race 
converted  to  Christianity  at  the  end  of  the  fourteenth  century  and 
beginning  of  the  fifteenth.  The  lofty  derivation  from  Maran-atha, 
the  Lord  cometh,  seems  hardly  called  for,  seeing  that  marrano  is 
Spanish  for  pi;/.  The  "old  Christians"  learned  to  use  the  word  as  a 
term  of  contempt  for  the  "new  Christians,"  or  converted  Jews  and 
their  descendants;  Ijut  not  too  monotonously,  for  they  often  inter- 
changed it  with  the  fine  old  crusted  opprobrium  of  the  name  Jew. 
Still,  many  Marranos  held  the  highest  secular  and  ecclesiastical  prizes 
in  Spain,  and  were  respected  accordingly. 

Page  417.     Celestial  Baron. 

The  Spaniards  conceived  their  patron  Santiago  (St.  .James),  the 
great  captain  of  their  armies,  as  a  knight  and  baron;  to  them,  the 
incongruity  would  have  lain  in  conceiving  him  simply  as  a  Galilean 
fisherman.  And  their  legend  was  adopted  with  respect  by  devout 
mediaeval  minds  generally.  Dante,  in  an  elevated  passage  of  the 
Paradiso — the  memorable  opening  of  Canto  xxv, — chooses  to  intro- 
duce the  Apostle  James  as  il  barone. 

"  Indi  si  mosse  un  lume  verso  noi 
Di  quella  schiera,  ond  'use!  la  primizia 
Che  lascio  Crisso  de'  vicari  suoi. 
E  la  mia  Donna  plena  de  letizia 
Mi  disse:  Mira,  mira,  ecco  '1  barone. 
Per  cui  laggiu  si  visita  Galizia." 

Page  418.     The  Seven  Parts. 

Las  Biete  Partidas  (The  Seven  Parts)  is  the  title  ^iven  to  the  code  of 
laws  compiled  under  Alfonso  the  Tenth,  who  reigned  in  the  latter 
half  of  the  thirteenth  century— 1252-1284.  The  pas-sage  in  the  text 
is  translated  from  Pnriida  II.,  Ley  II.  The  whole  preamble  is  worth 
citing  in  its  old  Spanish: — 

503 


504  NOTES. 

"  Como  dcben  ser  escogidos  cahalleros. 

"  Antiguamiente  para  facer  caballeros  escogien  de  los  venadores  de 
monte,  que  son  homes  que  sufreu  grande  laceria,  et  carpinteros,  et 
ferreros,  et  pedreros,  porque  usan   mucho  a  ferir  et  son  I'uerte  de 
manos;  et  otrosi  de  los  carniceros,  por  razon  que  usan  matar  las  cosas 
vivas  et  esparcer   la  sangre  dellas:    et  aun    cataban  otra  cosa  en 
escogiendolos  que  fuesen  bien  faccionadas  de  membros  para  ser 
recios,  et  fuertes  et  ligeros.     Et  esta  manera  de  escoger  usaron  los 
antiguos  muy  grant  tiempo;    mas  porque  despues  vicvon  muchas 
vegadas  que  estos  atales  non  liabiendo  verglieuza  olvidaban  todas 
estas  cosas  sobredichas,  et  en  logar  de  vincer  sus  enemigos  veuciense 
ellos,  tovieron  por  bien  los  sabidores  destas  cosas  que  catasen  homes 
para'  esto  que  hobiesen  naturalmiente  en  si  vergiienza.     Et  sobresto 
dixo  un  sabio  que  habie  nombre  Vegecio  que  fablo  de  la  ordeu  de 
caballeria,  que  la  vergiienza  vieda  al  caballero  que  non  fuya  de  la 
batalla,  et  por  ende  ella  le  face  ser  vencedor;  ca  mucho  tovieron  que 
era  mejor  el  homo  flaco  et  sofridor,  que  el  f uerte  et  ligero  para  foir. 
Et  por  esto  sobre  todas  las  otras  cosas  cataron  que  fuesen  homes 
porque  se  guardasen  de  facer  cosa  por  que  podiesen  caer  en  ver- 
giienza: et  porque  estos  fueron  escogidos  de  buenos  logares  et  algo, 
que  quiere  tanto  decir  en  language  de  Espana  como  bien,  por  eso  los 
llamaron  fijosdalgo,  que  muestra  atanto  como  fijos  de  bien.     Et  en 
algunos  otros  logares  los  llamaron  gentiles,  et  tomaron  este  nombre  de 
gentileza  que  muestra  atanto  como  nobleza  de  bondat,  porque  los 
gentiles  fueron  nobles  homes  et  buenos,  et  vevieron  mas  ordenada- 
mente  que  las  otras  gentes.     Et  esta  gentileza  aviene  en  tres  maneras 
la  una  por  linage,  la  segunda  por  saber,  et  la  tercera  por  bondat  de 
armas  et  de  costumbres  et  de  maneras.    Et  comoquier  que  estos  que  la 
ganan  por  su  sabidoria  6  por  su  bondat,  son  con  derecho  llamados  nobles 
et  gentiles,  mayormiente  lo  son  aquellos  que  la  han  por  linage  antigua- 
miente, et  facen  buena  vida  porque  les  viene  de  luene  como  por 
heredat:  et  por  ende  son  mas  encargados  de  facer  bien  et  guardarse 
de  yerro  et  de  malestanza;  ca  non  tan  solamiente  quando  lo  facen 
resc'iben  dano  et  vergiienza  ellos  mismos,  ma  aun  aquellos  onde  ellcs 
vienen." 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

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